Nuffield Health Gym Price Increase

Krzysj

Hello. Nuffield Health have implemented a national price increase this month. I was notified on 11th February and price increases on 1st March. Their Ts&Cs published on their website state:
14.2 From time to time we may change our monthly membership fees. We will try not to change the fee more frequently than once in a calendar year, and to ensure that any change is reasonable, but we cannot guarantee this. We will tell you about any change that will apply to you and will give you at least one full calendar months’ notice before the change comes into effect. Please see your payment options for details of how fee changes will affect you.

Their Ts&Cs also explains what a calendar month means:
– 11.2.1 To cancel your membership after the cooling-off period has expired, you must send your notice in writing to your home centre’s manager or fill in a cancellation form at your home centre. If your home centre receives your notice on the first day of the month, your membership will end on the last day of the same month. If your centre receives your notice after the first day of the month, your membership will end on the last day of the following month. This means we will take one more direct debit payment before cancelling your membership. For example, if we receive your notice on 10 May, cancellation will take effect from 30 June.

I have raised with my club and tried to escalate to corporate that they are in breach of T&C's by applying the increase so quickly, and are actually only giving people a week to accept the change before the direct debit run is applied. They state via their manager that they can give 5 days notice of increase. Is this correct legally?

What am I able to do about it? Presumably the extra £5.40 they get from every member in the UK for an extra month should really be refunded, but I doubt they will do that. I also still want to be a member, I'm just not happy that they think they can bully consumers and not apply their rules. I welcome thoughts and advice on the matter   

Manxman_in_exile

Did you point out to your local club manager that their own T&Cs say that they "will give you at least one full calendar months' notice etc " of any price increase?

Did you ask him where he gets his 5 days notice from?

(Are you sure you haven't received earlier notice?  If it's a national across the board increase I'm a bit surprised that they would - apparently - get it so wrong.  Raise it with their head office.  What do other members think?)

Grumpy_chap

I received the price increase e-mail on 11th February, with the change applicable from 1st March and to let them know by 19th February if I wanted to discuss anything.

To be honest, I thought the increase was fair.  It is lower than the current rate of inflation, I can't recall the last time the rate increased, gyms have had a real hammering through COVID and now have the impacts of high energy costs to contend with as well.

That is just my view2 and others, including the OP, are entitled to their view.  I haven't checked the T's&C's but it does seem likely that they have made a blunder.

It is probably difficult for the Centre Manager to do much about this, but the OP may be more successful if they, maybe, request something free as that is probably far easier for the Centre Manager to do - guest pass if it will be used, or a free PT session, or free coffee....

Krzysj said:

Hello. Nuffield Health have implemented a national price increase this month. I was notified on 11th February and price increases on 1st March. Their Ts&Cs published on their website state:
14.2 From time to time we may change our monthly membership fees. We will try not to change the fee more frequently than once in a calendar year, and to ensure that any change is reasonable, but we cannot guarantee this. We will tell you about any change that will apply to you and will give you at least one full calendar months’ notice before the change comes into effect. Please see your payment options for details of how fee changes will affect you.

Their Ts&Cs also explains what a calendar month means:
– 11.2.1 To cancel your membership after the cooling-off period has expired, you must send your notice in writing to your home centre’s manager or fill in a cancellation form at your home centre. If your home centre receives your notice on the first day of the month, your membership will end on the last day of the same month. If your centre receives your notice after the first day of the month, your membership will end on the last day of the following month. This means we will take one more direct debit payment before cancelling your membership. For example, if we receive your notice on 10 May, cancellation will take effect from 30 June.

I have raised with my club and tried to escalate to corporate that they are in breach of T&C's by applying the increase so quickly, and are actually only giving people a week to accept the change before the direct debit run is applied. They state via their manager that they can give 5 days notice of increase. Is this correct legally?

What am I able to do about it? Presumably the extra £5.40 they get from every member in the UK for an extra month should really be refunded, but I doubt they will do that. I also still want to be a member, I'm just not happy that they think they can bully consumers and not apply their rules. I welcome thoughts and advice on the matter   

Krzysj

Thanks for your replies. I did point all of this out to the centre manager and then the area manager. I can’t raise it with head office as they keep routing my complaint back to a gym location and won’t answer this themselves. 

The feedback from Nuffield legal team via these managers was initially they can increase as it’s in line with DD guarantee. Which it is but not my issue here. And then area manager said legal said they can apply increase with 5 days notice. Both times I’ve highlighted their own terms and conditions and have been ignored. 

I continued paying throughout covid even though I wasn’t using the gym - as I was aware they would have lost revenue and I wanted to support others as I was still working full time. 

I’m not after a freebie for me here - I do t agree with the principle that they basically do what they want to make money off their members and want them to acknowledge and rectify the issue for all. 

Grumpy_chap

Krzysj said:

I continued paying throughout covid even though I wasn’t using the gym

That's odd - Nuffield automatically stopped my payments when they closed for lockdown.

One tactic you could try is to write and reject the change in rate.  I did that with my alarm service, simply sent a letter saying that I reject the change and would carry on at the old rate.  That was agreed to by the alarm monitoring company.

As I said, I thought the Nuffield Health gym membership increase is fair, so just accepted that.  The increase in PT rates was far less amenable and I did push back on that.

user1977

I don't think it's an across-the-board increase - I've heard nothing about mine changing.