Virgin Active 'No Joining Fee' - Regular Offer?

Ingah

I was wondering how often the above offer comes around as i'm interested in joining my local Virgin Active (Bridgend) but I want to check out some other gyms in the area before committing to anything - and they're only offering 'no joining fee' until the end of this month...

NathanMorgan

I would suggest you go in and ask to have a look around their facilities and training equipment they have to offer and to make sure that they have all you need for your current training routine.

If your training routine has you doing squats, deadlifts, bench press etc make sure they have squat racks, deadlift platforms, bench racks or vice versa for cardio equipment.

If all this ticks the right boxes then take advantage of that offer but read over the terms & conditions just in case there's hidden charges.

jenniewb

I was a member of Virgin Active for a few years, in my experience (and they may well change things) the no joining fee offer only happened around Dec-Jan sort of time.
They tend to give away 'things' rather than take off money in other joining offers throughout the year (eg free gym bag, personal training session, free locker rental or whatever else) it depends on what's more useful to you, the offers save/cost the club more or less the same.

chuckley

they all waive the fee when you go in to look around.

they know that's what will make people sign up on the spot.

jenniewb

chuckley wrote: »

they all waive the fee when you go in to look around.

they know that's what will make people sign up on the spot.

Not in my experience. I've walked from gyms where they don't and have not been given any sort of money off, gift or similar. I don't think every staff member has the authority to waive fees like this. Some will but not all.

chuckley

maybe they didn't fancy you.

each VA I ever walked in all threw discounts at me to sign up the one I finally got was a corp deal. and it wasn't even in the 'season' of new sign ups.

jenniewb

chuckley wrote: »

maybe they didn't fancy you.

each VA I ever walked in all threw discounts at me to sign up the one I finally got was a corp deal. and it wasn't even in the 'season' of new sign ups.

I think it's just the time of the year and how many discounts staff members have to give away. I think if you visit fairly early on in the month they don't want to give their discounts away and wont. If you are lucky and they have a discount left at the end of the month and manage to find someone who is happy to give the discount, then it's fine but it's not always the case that a staff member will be able to do this for many reasons.
(And assuming all the gym membership staff I've seen were straight, I doubt I'd get fees knocked off for being someone they fancied!)

Ingah

It's worth noting that despite chasing me multiple times, no discount or further incentives were offered (despite the 'rest of the month free' offer that this was combined with, being of decreasing value as the month came to a close) and I ended up going with another gym that was cheaper.

Mr_Singleton

jenniewb wrote: »

Not in my experience. I've walked from gyms where they don't and have not been given any sort of money off, gift or similar.

A few years ago I thought of joining a gym so looked around a few. Oddly NONE of them would give me ANY pricing information until I'd spent around 45 minutes being dragged around the facilities.

Every single one of them had a per month charge PLUS a Joining Fee/Induction Fee/ Admin charge on top of the monthly charge.

I offered to join but not to pay the additional fee. Not one would allow me to do that. So I said " I'll put my payment card back into my wallet and you can have the pleasure of watching £1000 walk out of the door". They though I was being unreasonable yet they let £1000 walk out of the door for the sake of between £50 and £75!