Anytime Fitness — Local services in Denver

As the saying goes, buyer beware:

I have a member agreement with Anytime Fitness. The member agreement provides for reciprocal access to other Anytime Locations. I visited this location a few times over the summer before Morgan called me and tried to talk me into "transferring" my home membership to her gym (and paying a higher fee).

I spoke with my home gym here in Denver, and they told me I didn't need to transfer my home membership.

Fast forward a few weeks - I returned from visiting relatives and discovered my key didn't work. Morgan at first told me all was well, and then came over giggling and told me that she had cut off my access because I didn't want to accept her higher rate.

The next day Morgan sent me the reciprocity provision from the standard agreement that Anytime uses. She said that provision explains her rationale for removing access. Unfortunately, the membership agreement (and that provision) does not provide any basis for removing access to a member in good standing.

It merely provides a member may have to pay a higher rate if a transfer occurred. But if, as here, no transfer occurs, the status quo remains.

Most of the gyms are individually owned and operated, which Anytime Fitness now seem to claim means that no member can expect reciprocal access regardless of what the binding member agreement provides. Apparently, the reciprocity provision is enforceable against (and therefore applies to) only the single gym owner where the member is a home member, even though no mention of this is in the agreement.

What they are trying to do here is make more money, but they also appear to be violating the terms of their own member agreements and potentially violating CO Laws governing health spas. It's easy to induce people with promises of reciprocal access to get them to join, but then when issues arise, they want to claim that the reciprocal access provisions are essentially meaningless.

I don't want to transfer my home gym location - not only is this location more expensive, but it is smaller, has fewer machines, and will be less convenient to me during the winter months.

Morgan characterized this as a fairness issue, but it is really not about fairness. Many people have different rates for different reasons, including signing up during a promotion, like I did.

The real issue is why do they continue to place these provisions in agreements with no clarifying language and when the owner entering the agreement seems powerless...

Felt very uncomfortable here. Was asked a lot of weird questions when I came in with a trial membership on first and only day. No locker room. Just 2 or 3 individual bathrooms with showers in them. Employee literally knocked on my door at 20 minutes and said I was taking too long. Weird. Putting in the response I was there over an hour is a flat out lie AS IS DYEING MY HAIR. Owner then emailed me to take this down, in a passive aggressive nature siting female owned businesses and how hard she already has it. This maybe news to this gym but people get memberships for MANY reasons, including using locker room facilities ( which they don't have). Her response to this review is obviously upset and she felt an attempt to put me down with false accusations would make her gym look better. No idea where she came up with the salon business, I was looking for a gym that I could change for my third job at and not have to drive an hour and a half back to my house everyday. Not that I should have to explain that. Is my money not worth taking if I don't use the gym equipment? I will repeat again that this woman makes you feel uncomfortable. Go to Planet fitness! They welcome ALL members and don't freak out if you are honest. It's okay for a facility not to meet everyone's needs. It is not okay for a business owner to create false digs on a consumer because her feelings were hurt and she was not able to manipulate the situation in her favor. Clearly many people enjoy this gym and I think that's great. I personally felt like I was in the Mean Girls movie. The bottom line is if you are looking for a place TO PAY to use a shower or locker room, you can see how the owner feels about people like us and I recommend you run...

In Denver for a few months for work. My home anytime fitness gym is in another state so I came to this location to get a workout while I’m in town. Today they sent me a helpful email letting me know that my “guest reciprocity has expired” and I can no longer go there, but I can surely go to another gym.

Per anytime fitness hq’s website : “you will have access to all gyms at any location and can work out at any gym you choose.” …. But apparently not this one. I never talked to any staff there, or interacted with any other members. Never received a welcome email, or any notice of this policy. My first and only outreach was to let me know I was blocked for access starting immediately. I guess the way they decided to cancel the access was to look on the computer to find gym members who aren’t giving them the maximum amount of membership fees in a purely profit driven modus operandi.

I’m sure one of the staff will respond below with some chat bot adjacent generic response that thanks me for trying them out and explains in some combination the nuances of membership plans, the merits of a ‘home’ location, and the value of supporting...