My health club issue and rights

EddieJas

In June 2024, I joined a health club with my two daughters, ages 14 and 13. The admin encouraged us to buy a full membership, allowing us to take swimming lessons without a waiting list. He also confirmed that the price would be half if we joined a private trainer.  We signed the contract for one year based on what he said. Unfortunately, there was no private trainer, and the waiting list was long enough that we wasted June, July and August (the School Holidays) waiting. Therefore, based on the information provided, the club administration committed a breach. Now, the club has refused my cancellation as the contract is for a year, and I am allowed only three months before the end of the contract to cancel the membership. They did not look at my claims of waiting. They did not believe that the admin said that. I also showed messages from the swimming trainer, who ignored me totally from July to the end of August. Today, they said we would ask the third party to get our money from you even when I decided to freeze my membership. Could anyone please advise on my case? I have never been in such a problem before. 

Aylesbury_Duck

EddieJas said:

In June 2024, I joined a health club with my two daughters, ages 14 and 13. The admin encouraged us to buy a full membership, allowing us to take swimming lessons without a waiting list. He also confirmed that the price would be half if we joined a private trainer.  We signed the contract for one year based on what he said. Unfortunately, there was no private trainer, and the waiting list was long enough that we wasted June, July and August (the School Holidays) waiting. Therefore, based on the information provided, the club administration committed a breach. Now, the club has refused my cancellation as the contract is for a year, and I am allowed only three months before the end of the contract to cancel the membership. They did not look at my claims of waiting. They did not believe that the admin said that. I also showed messages from the swimming trainer, who ignored me totally from July to the end of August. Today, they said we would ask the third party to get our money from you even when I decided to freeze my membership. Could anyone please advise on my case? I have never been in such a problem before. 

This is ambiguous.  It could mean one of two things:

a. that the price of the full membership would be halved if you subsequently engaged with a private trainer, or

b. that the price of the private trainer would be half the usual rate because of your full membership.

Which is it?  

FlorayG

Do you have these promises in writing?

Grumpy_chap

I am not quite sure how the skip the waiting list for the swimming lessons would be managed from a practical sense as I understand it most private gyms only offer swimming lessons to members / member's children. 

If we take at face value that the waiting list can be skipped for full member status, it is quite possible that the delay in lessons from June, July, August (school holidays) is nothing to do with the waiting list but simply whether lessons are continuing through this period.  Many gyms, including private gyms, do not operate the child swimming classes during school holidays.  (Indeed, the provision of adult classes of various type can also be reduced.)  This is a combination of lack of available instructors plus reduced demand.

I also wonder what "skip the waiting list" really means.  Did you expect to join in June and get straight into a class in June?  If the classes for June (or the remainder of the summer term) were already full, it is not really practical to displace a student from a swimming class that has a course of classes in progress.  The most that "skip the waiting list" can really mean is first inline for a place at the next start of classes, which would typically be once the new term of lessons begins.

What were you expecting by "skip the waiting list" for swimming lessons?