LA Fitness International

Our experience with LA Fitness (my fiancée and I) after leaving Planet Fitness has be kind of mixed. We decided to leave Planet Fitness and join LA Fitness for simple reasons, the monthly price was the same and we would have access to classes, a pool, sauna, and hot tub. After working out there for 2 week we loved it and decided to take the “Free Fitness Assessment”. We worked with a guy named Shane, he was nice and very helpful, while you could tell this was a sales pitch for the personal trainer program he was not push and very polite. My fiancée and I asked him to give us a min to talk about it alone, we decided it was time to ramp things up. We dropped 70lbs each while working out at Planet Fitness and thought a personal trainer would help push us to the next level. Before we signed up we had a few more questions, the most important one being, due to our work schedules the only time we could workout was 5am and could we get a personal trainer that early once a week? Shane checked with one of the trainers (for this story we will call her Sam) and she said yes that’s no problem. So we signed up, 1 session a week at 5am on Wednesdays. The first few weeks were awesome, Sam gave us a new routine every Wednesday and then we repeated ourselves on Friday and the following Monday. Around October Sam started sending me texts in the morning that she could not make it to the session that day, 3 times between October and November. Then in December I got a text one morning saying that she couldn’t make because she had to go pick up her brother, later in December again she could not make it something was wrong with her mom and she had to go help her. Then the next week was she locked her keys in the car and the number pad on the door handle for keyless entry was not working. This time we rescheduled the session for that Friday at 5am, she was good with that. Friday morning comes around we are at the gym, but Sam is not, not text, no calls, she just didn’t show up. It’s now January and we canceled the first 2 session due to being sick, when I canceled the second session I sent Sam the following email …

“Hey we are not going to make it tomorrow. Tricia is sick now and I took her to stat care last night. We will start again next week. I need your help there have been a lot of missed sessions the last few months and I need to make sure no more are missed. We have to keep on track! Maybe we can talk next week about it? Maybe in the evening one day?

Thanks William”

Sam’s response …

“Ok just let me know when would be a good time and I can see if I have an open spot. My evenings between 6 and 8 get pretty busy but besides that I usually have free time. We can start doubling up on sessions also. Maybe do Saturday's too.”

So we meet with her on a Thursday night about 8pm, talked about getting back on track and staying committed as well as adding in another session in Saturdays to make up for the now 6 extra sessions we have paid for that she missed and the 2 we missed giving us 8 extra paid sessions. I am thinking great, we are all back on the same page and getting things going again. Just a small hiccup, I will chalk it up to the craziness from the holidays. So the 3rd week in January, Tuesday night we got a light dusting of snow, less than an inch. Wednesday morning I get this text …

“Ok I hate to do this. My street isn't plowed or salted. It's going to take me a while to shovel a path to get going. I can hopefully be there by 530. I'm sorry.”

Then this text…

“I still can't get down my road. I won't make it in time for the session. I'm really sorry. If you want to make this one up Friday we can. Then we can do Friday and Saturday”

We could not do the session on Friday because my fiancée had to be at work early, we were just coming in to knock out some cardio and leave. So I told Sam we would see her on Saturday. At this point I am beyond irritated with this situation, I have made every attempt to get us all working together and back on track with no luck at all. Saturday morning LA Fitness opens at 8am, we have a session scheduled with Sam at 8am and we take the water aerobics class at 9am.So we get there at 8am, there are about 20 cars in the parking lot but no one is going in, I look up at the gym and all the lights are still off and the doors are still locked. 8:15am, still locked and more cars, none of them belonging to Sam by the way. At 8:30 ish the doors open and Sam is nowhere to be found, and once again no text or call saying she would not make it. Now we have 7 paid sessions she has missed and 2 we have missed for a total of 9 sessions. That was the last straw, we are done! While we were at the gym Saturday we talked to the lady that works with Sam after us, she said the same thing that Sam has missed a few sessions with her. Then we talked with another woman we see with a different trainer all the time, she said her year just ended and she was so happy, he was not worth it and didn’t help her at all. Also over the last few months while this is all going on we were talking to a few other people that had a different trainer, he was fired and no one told his clients. They came in expecting to get a session and there was no one there. Then when his replacement was hired they just stuck him with the old clients, not giving the consumer the option to go with him or pick a new trainer. Knowing that everyone we have talked to about the personal trainers at this location were unhappy and what we have been through with our trainer we decided that was it. We don’t want another trainer we want to cancel the personal trainer contract.

Now I contact member services to cancel the contract and they told me, we had to pay for half of the remaining sessions in the 1 year contract. I remember them telling us if I canceled the contract we would have to pay for half the remaining session before we signed up, but in this situation we are not canceling because we just don’t want to go see the trainer anymore. We are canceling because they could not provide me the service that we signed up for! Yes we did miss 2 sessions, but as the paying consumer it is our right to not use the service if we are still paying. It is no different than the gym membership we pay for, they are guaranteeing a service for X number of days a month and X number of hours each day, it is our choice to go when and if we want to as paying members of the gym. As paying consumers in the personal trainer contract it is our right to use the sessions we pay for or not! They still charge us for the session if they are used or not. Also if we have a session scheduled and Sam does not show up but we still go to the gym that day, soon as we scan in that session is marked as used and she still gets paid for it. I don’t think its fair that we have to pay for half the remaining personal trainer contract if we cancel because LA Fitness could not provide the service they sold us. We don’t want to cancel our gym membership just the personal trainer contract. LA Fitness Member Services told me to cancel we need to pay $564.00, lets break this down. The 7 sessions she missed at $47 each (for a MASTER Trainer) is $329, now add in the 3 missed session that have come from her getting talked to by the Local manger after I contacted member services and she canceled all our remaining sessions while he is trying to sell us on another trainer. That’s a total of 10 session we have paid for and not got due to LA Finesses inability to provide the service they sold us and we are at $470. I would say that’s close enough to be considered fair. We should be able to cancel without paying the $564.

I am now going to post this on every site I can, and file a complaint with the Better Business Burro. If you agree with us or have had similar experiences with LA Fitness please share this and re-post it to whatever social media you can.