Planet Fitness — Local services in Charlottesville

This location has been charging me for months after I cancelled my membership, and even renewed me and charged me an annual fee. First time I came in person in November to cancel it. In December I was charged, so I called to cancel it, they said it was cancelled. In January I was charged again and the annual fee applied. I called again. They said they would cancel it but to call back to speak to the manager about the annual fee. Ok. I got busy, was going to just let it go about refunding the annual fee because, hey, I'm cancelled now. I don't use this bank account for much, so in March I'm reviewing my expenses and see they are still charging me! First employee that answered just hung up on me. The second insists I mail them a letter to stop charging me. I don't even live in the United States anymore and I am not going to mail them a letter after all of this. Really bizarre and greedy. The employees seem to take glee in making things difficult instead of just cancelling the membership and refunding me as I have asked for months.

As for the businesses response: I heard that from your employees. Multiple times. Please train your employees to make this clear 100% of the time - not say anything to get off the phone. It caused a lot of difficulty. Thank you.

Finally, after a lengthy process of getting my bank to refund me. They stated the issue is that planet fitness uses a different name/billing each time to work around any bocks to their charges. And that is exactly what happened. Each time a slightly different name/biller to get another months charge out of me. If multiple bank employees know of this, it’s rampant. That’s shady. Period.

The manager of a different planet fitness actually cancelled me when I returned to the states. This location just has poorly trained employees and doesn’t care.

As for the gym, it was fine and nice. It’s a planet fitness. Just don’t lie to people to get them off the phone or all these other machinations to keep...

I have been meaning to post this for a while now About my visit I had a little over a month ago at the Charlottesville Planet Fitness. I travel a lot and have been to a lot of gyms, And this location was by far the cleanest and most organized gym I’ve ever seen. Not only was the gym clean, but my first impression of the staff immediately made me feel that this was a happy place. There were 3 or 4 staff at the desk and they were all doing one big group hug, laughing and smiling. This of course made me smile because this is something that you don’t see a lot of anymore in workplace, HAPPY EMPLOYEES! I first spoke with Kim, who was very sweet and registered me and pointed me in the direction I needed to go. When I couldn’t find a piece of equipment another young gentleman with sandy blonde hair helped me locate the piece of equipment I needed. The environment was so upbeat, and I could see that the members all had their own type of bond/friendship with the staff. There was one staff member, who I believe was the manager of the place, Loretta or Lynn, and she was more than kind. Not only did she help answer my questions, but she also told me about some places to visit while I was in town. I talked to her for some time, and somehow we got on the topic of how my husband had been struggling with his health. The empathy she showed me still bring tears to my eyes. I hope this Planet Fitness realizes and appreciates what an amazing manager and leader they have, you can’t replicate someone like that nor the other...

I moved to Charlottesville last summer and started going to ACAC for a month trial this fall. I then heard that Planet Fitness was opening in November and got out of ACAC before I was stuck in a year long contract for $89 a month. So far Planet Fitness has everything I need for $10/month (plus some hidden fees like annual renewal and I'm sure they'll have a weird cancellation fee).

Planet Fitness has a lot of cardio machines all with personal TVs, as much weight equipment as ACAC, free weights (ACAC does this better, PF's dumbbells only go up to 75lbs), an ab room, and a 30 minute workout room (machines are arranged in rows along with a timer to put you through a pre-constructed workout).

They don't offer classes on the same level as ACAC, and don't have a pool. All of the equipment is new, and so far the place has been mostly empty because it just opened and they don't have a full customer base yet.

They only have four floor mats for situps/floor exercises and they're already starting to get ratty. I'm hoping they'll replace them frequently but it's too early to know how well this place will be maintained.

Overall I'm happier spending $10/month here on a month to month basis, compared to ACAC which is $89/month and locks you in to a year long contract. Planet Fitness is definitely gaudy and tacky, but it gets the job done. If you don't mind spending the money ACAC has far nicer facilities.

I'll update this in 6 months or so once I can see how well they keep...