Pruhealth gym loophole Article Discussion

adamt

ive just been on the phone to la fitness head office, and they have informed me i dont need to sign a 12 month contract with la, i just follow Pru healths terms (which is flexible, and can cancel when i choose) i also dont need to give any bank details.

can anyone whos going to LA via pru confirm this??

also when u pay the £25 activation online, does anyone know the terms and coniditions u sign to online?
does it say anything about a 12 month contract on line?

thanks

Hackneyboy

Are there any added perks for exisiting Boots Opticians customers who use the Boots plan? I notice it says that you'll help your vitality points by taking a Boots eye test.

andymac238

adamt wrote: »

ive just been on the phone to la fitness head office, and they have informed me i dont need to sign a 12 month contract with la, i just follow Pru healths terms (which is flexible, and can cancel when i choose) i also dont need to give any bank details.

can anyone whos going to LA via pru confirm this??

also when u pay the £25 activation online, does anyone know the terms and coniditions u sign to online?
does it say anything about a 12 month contract on line?

thanks

Yes that's correct, you sign up through Pru and they deal with it all. DON'T sign anything with LA Fitness - not even a DD form (I made this mistake). Pru do the lot for you (except for the initial activation online - see next paragraph), if you have any queries or the gym staff at LA start asking you to sign things or pay money, either refer them to the Pru or better still call the Pru/LA Fitness Head office yourself and ask them to intervene.

As far as I remember there is nothing about a 12 month Contract when you do the Activation, you do it through a special section of the LA Fitness website which is specifically for Pru Health members. It's just a fee to activate your membership and this should be the only payment you actually make to LA Fitness throughout the whole process.

From what I gather, Pru have signed a 'corporate' membership agreement with LA Fitness, which essentially means that you pay the Pru for your membership, and they pay LA Fitness. So you aren't bound by the standard LA Fitness contract, when you want to cancel you just tell Pru Health and they deal with it.

Be aware that there are problems at the moment, specifically with the actual staff at the gyms knowing how this all works. Head office seem pretty switched on about it, but my experience was that the gym staff weren't as well informed and they will likely either ask you to pay £48 up front or tell you your membership is 'pending' (Pru told me this is a 'system error'). Again, in both cases you should call LA Fitness Head Office or the Pru and explain the problems you are having and they should sort it for you - better still, follow this up with an email/letter to both.

Hope this helps you

adamt

thanks alot Andymac i really appreciate it.

i just dont want to get a problem if i decide say 5 months into the deal i want to quit pruhealth, but then get LA telling me ive gotta stay for another 7 months and pay the full un-subsidised rate.

i spoke to Pru , and they said La might hold u to the 12 month contract and charge u full price, u have to speak with them?

This makes me worry that they dont deal with the LA side of things if i was to cancel half way in.

but then again if theres no online or in the gym contract, i should be fine???

ZenUK

mylittleminion wrote: »

my partner was going to do it through Pru Health and then while on the Boots website he found the same offer through Boots Insurance (same benefits/company) MUCH cheaper. So now he has cancelled the Pru Health and got the Boots one!!!He now has half price premiums and 1000 Advantage Card points as a result. (have to join by 30th August!)http://www.pruhealth.co.uk/uk/prudential/nosessionrequired/q2a/offer.jhtml?DW_SP_NCP=1185958394764&src_id=400&_requestid=3296

~Now extended til 27th September and now with 2000 Advantage points.. All it needs now is Quidco for a super deal.

Libertarian

adamt wrote: »

thanks alot Andymac i really appreciate it.

i just dont want to get a problem if i decide say 5 months into the deal i want to quit pruhealth, but then get LA telling me ive gotta stay for another 7 months and pay the full un-subsidised rate.

i spoke to Pru , and they said La might hold u to the 12 month contract and charge u full price, u have to speak with them?

This makes me worry that they dont deal with the LA side of things if i was to cancel half way in.

but then again if theres no online or in the gym contract, i should be fine???

This is exactly the concern I have and posted about a few weeks back. When you sign up via the LA Fitness website you accept thier terms and conditions. These look just like the ones that you would get if you signed up as a normal LA Fitness member.

I expect that if you cancelled before the 12 months is up LA Fitness would pursue you for the unpaid fees, although I fail to see how that could be successful in a court. I think the LA Fitness way is to: demand money, argue and then think about whether their is a basis to do so. Given a lot of people might just pay up one can see the logic, but not the ethics of this approach.

If I found myself in these circumstances and common sense was lacking on their part my response would be: okay sue me. I really can't see that happening since:
- One would counterclaim against PruHealth since all you did was accept their offer which required acquiesence to the LA Fitness terms
- Pru wouldn't want the negative publicity
- the LA Fitness contract doesn't detail how much the fee actually is its not clear what they could claim even if it was sustainable

As I said in a previous post I think there is another (and more relevant to most people) potential cost to using LA Fitness: you could end up paying for the gym even if you go more than twice a week.

It is the number of card swipes that determines the level of fee (after the first 3 months), but in my experience these are not always recorded. I would urge you to check the vitality statement to see if any visits are 'missing'. I have told the Pru about my missing visits about 10 days ago, but have only received a pending letter to date. Given the Pru contract makes us resposible for ensuring visits are recorded, but we are in reality reliant on LA Fitness systems, I see the prospect for disappointment when "free" gym becomes £25 per month gym inspite of 2+ visits per week.

bob_regis

I was just about to go ahead and do this and double checked the cashback sites.

Quidco £115
Topcashback £115 (has gone down from £155).

Can someone who used the telephone quote method please confirm that it has been tracked by quidco?

Also, I used this deal for myself 12 months ago. I now want to use it for my wife, will quidco let me do this or will it think that it is a repeat transaction and disallow it?

Bob.

lazymoezy

Im 18, got 17 and 15 year old mates. Was wondering if we get the quote would we be elible for the free gym? There is a Cannons near us, probably will have to be over a certain age....just checking.

Let me know.

-MoE-

gingerRAT

Dear pr33tz & littlerose,

Thought I'd post to give you some info about your query. I am in the same position having signed up to the 6 months free gym membership deal with pruhealth in april. Since the 6months is coming to an end I thought I'd better call them to find out what my options are and they gave me the answer littlerose had - that the new offer would be available to me when I renew the policy in april. I asked if I could cancel the policy and take out one again straight away on the new deal and they said yes, although that meant losing my vitality points (still don't understand how many i've got and how these reduce your future premiums...).

So I cancelled the policy and waited for someone from the pruhealth cancellations department to call me back - they said this would happen within 48 hrs but it was only 5 mins. The guy was really nice and explained that in fact I would continue paying my £23 premium every month and pay for just one month's pruhealth subsidised gym membership for November. Not sure why only one month as opposed to three as martin mentionned in his article but it sounds good to me. They guy also worked out that i must go at least 24 times from now until the end of november to ensure I don't pay for the gym membership in future (ie. at least 2 times per week).

Hope that helps.

If you need any more info let me know....

littlerose12345

Thank gingerRAT!! I've just called them up and someone from the cancellation team shouldbe ringing me tomorrow! YAY!

He also mentioned that they may be able to switch me over to the new gym scheme without cancelling my current policy and taking out another one to save on admin.. but i suppose we'll see what they say tomorrow as he wasn't too sure

Thanks again!