California Fitness Promotion

[youngkiwi]

Just had a call from a California Fitness sales rep offering a lifetime membership for 12,000 baht with yearly membership renewal of 999 baht (waived for the first 3 years).

In addition, as part of this promotion they offered an additional full membership (for a friend) for one year for free.

What do you think? Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

Edited January 23, 2008 by youngkiwi

[marshbags]

Just had a call from a California Fitness sales rep offering a lifetime membership for 12,000 baht with yearly membership renewal of 999 baht (waived for the first 3 years).

In addition, as part of this promotion they offered an additional full membership (for a friend) for one year for free.

What do you think? Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

Be very cautious.

Life is for x amount of time relating to the organisation / establishment NOT YOUR LIFETIME

It is very difficult to predict / forecast the life of any business and in particular " fitness related ones "

Usually this type of offer can indicate a cash flow problem and it is a good way of injecting your cash for use " now / immediate " as against x amount of time in the future.

IMHO as always and more importantly, based on previous experience.

marshbags

Edited January 23, 2008 by marshbags

[chicowoodduck]

Just had a call from a California Fitness sales rep offering a lifetime membership for 12,000 baht with yearly membership renewal of 999 baht (waived for the first 3 years).

In addition, as part of this promotion they offered an additional full membership (for a friend) for one year for free.

What do you think? Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

Unless "discipline" is your middle name, forget it! Most people who go in for any form of gym membership quit going on a regular basis after the FIRST full month.

[howtoescape]

Unless "discipline" is your middle name, forget it! Most people who go in for any form of gym membership quit going on a regular basis after the FIRST full month.

Maybe you dont like watching sweet sexy Thai girls about 23 year olds, 155cm, 43KG of the finest tightest flesh you will ever see, jumping up and down getting all hot and sticky, bending over showing off their never ending curves, all in the aid of looking beautiful for the male of the species.

12k for lifetime does sound cheap i thought it was 2-3k a month for standard membership.

[bkkperson]

when they say 14k lifetime does that mean that you never have to pay another penny to use cal wow???

If that is the case then it is a bargain to say the least but i recon that there would still be a monthly fee on top...

Do they have Short time rooms there???

[howtoescape]

Do they have Short time rooms there???

Why you not man enough to go long time?

[petedk]

12,000 is a good bargain but as one poster said "How long is lifetime?"

I have been a member of Clark Hatch for 5 years with annual fees ranging from 9,000 baht to 15,000. I paid my last subscription in September last year only to find that my branch closed down shortly afterwards. I had a network card which meant that I was allowed to use other branches but within a month they stopped me entering. Only one place still allows me to go there.

Last week I went to enquire at California Sukhumvit 23. They gave me a lot of bullshXX about not selling lifetime memberships anymore. They wanted something like 3,000 Baht a month. I still insisted on a lifetime and was told it cost "around 70,000 Baht". The so called manager came in pretending to be on his mobile and talking to his boss pleading him to "accept just one more special customer" and offered me 35,000 Baht lifetime membership if I signed there and then. I left them and went home.

Later my friend told me of a special offer at another branch ... 16800 baht lifetime and 100 baht per year after 3 years. I signed.

Yes, I wonder when conditions will change. They can't keep selling cheap memberships. Obviously places like that need a regular income. Anyway I enjoy it while I can.

[surface]

This sucks. Sounds like my 2 year membership is about to get cut short when they close shop. Must be be having serious money problems and/or their new signup rate is slowing down. I know I'll be shopping around before I sign on again with them.

[torrenova]

Well, I eventually got emailing their manager in Pattaya and lo and behold, he's disappeared off the face of the earth.

When Tony's introduced their Bt14,999 (now Bt19,999) lifetime membership I questioned how it could go on as it is underpinned only by the ponzi scheme principle. Just think about it. If the maximum people who can use the facilities are 5% of membership and that 5% equates to 100 people, then as soon as you have 2000 people * say 6 sessions (2 hour session with 12 meaningful hours a day) then with 12,000 people, you cannot fit anymore in. You then have no future revenues apart from on premises sales of water, food etc. and perhaps interest on the capital retained if it has not been salted away.

Change owner and there is no way your membership will be valid, lifetime or not !

[petedk]

This sucks. Sounds like my 2 year membership is about to get cut short when they close shop. Must be be having serious money problems and/or their new signup rate is slowing down. I know I'll be shopping around before I sign on again with them.

I don't think their new signup rate is slowing down. Just go to any branch and see the number of people signing up every day. The staff there (including personal Trainers) are under enormous pressure to sign up new people.

California Fitness is now on the stock market but of course that doesn't give any guarantee. Yes, maybe they'll reap in as much cash as possible and when signups start to fall, sell off, rendering our memberships useless.

[youngkiwi]

California is a large and stable gym operation and they're very unlikely to go under, or change ownership at this time. Even if they did change ownership, it is common practice for the new owner to honour existing membership agreements. It is a risk of course but in reality, I'm not at all concerned about that especially at such a low lifetime membership fee.

Like many businesses which offer deeply discounted promotions from time to time, this type of strategy works when the business has what they consider to be 'excess capacity' without affecting their main margins. From the looks of it, California has plenty of recurring membership subscriptions creating a large cashflow, so they can warrant giving out a limited number of lifetime memberships without impacting on their revenue stream. It is a fact that not all customers will attend the gym at any one time, not to mention the high drop-out rate of attendees.

The purpose of my thread was to get views on whether the deal offered is a good one or not. Seems pretty good to me. I'll try and haggle with them a bit more to see if there is any further movement, then I'll be signing with them shortly.

[Bentley 7]

Sounds good young kiwi. One of the better offers Ive heard. Keep us informed and he may get a few more more members if the deal is that good.

PS Is that the membership thats valid in any of the clubs in the network or just one specific location?

[youngkiwi]

Valid at all clubs. I'll let you know how I get on.

[jetjock]

Just had a call from a California Fitness sales rep offering a lifetime membership for 12,000 baht with yearly membership renewal of 999 baht (waived for the first 3 years).

In addition, as part of this promotion they offered an additional full membership (for a friend) for one year for free.

What do you think? Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

California Fitness prices are alway changing and negotiable however a simple answer to your question is that it is a good deal if they stay in business. As you know the history of health clubs in the long term has pretty much been a history of eventually going bankruptcy. I had a short term membership with Calif WOW and they have great facilities and a lot of eye candy to look at while working out. The only negative is if you have to deal with the hustlers that manage and run the club and the loud music outside. As you probably know, working out at a fancy club is very much of a status thing in addition to being a workout for many Asians and for that reason they gear their clubs towards towards a little different mentality. I currently am a member of 24 Hour Fitness in the US which is affiliated with California WOW and they offer a similar type of membership deal that you were offered in Thailand. Here in the US , I just bought paid $600. total for three years and then $29 a year guaranteed renewal after the initial 3 years. If these clubs are still around in a few years, we will of course make out very well.

I have excerpted a short history of California Fitness that someone might find interesting:

"California Fitness is a gym chain in Asia, with 22 clubs in five countries (6 cities) in Asia (Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, and Malaysia). It is a wholly owned subsidiary of US based 24 Hour Fitness, which has about 3 million members and 385 clubs in 16 states. ...It's rapidly expanding affiliate California Wow Xperience (CEO is a former Cali Fitness executive), is a California Fitness offshoot and a publicly traded company on the Stock Exchange of Thailand, mainly to get around foreign ownership laws, as it's business model, equipment, decoration all come from the California Fitness chain. However, it is considered a "Thai" company as majority ownership is Thai. It's so successful it has been accused of poaching members from other chains[2] It has member swap agreements with both affiliate chains, and runs 15 gyms in Korea' Thailand (5 cities) and Vietnam.

[siamesekitty]

Thanks for the information.

Do you know anything about how the member swap agreement works? I'm halfway into my 4 year Platinum membership at CaliforniaWow (though I've hardly ever used it) and will be going to the U.S. in Fall 2008. The guy I bought the membership from promised that I could use it in the States, but as with many of their salespeople, probably isn't the most trustworthy. I'm not sure if even the customer service here could be believed if they were to assure me that it could be used over there.

I considering whether I should keep it and try my luck, or see if I can sell it off now (2 years left), as I've seen a lot of people do on the Pantip webboard. But it sounds like the rates they're giving out now are a LOT cheaper than when I bought mine.

[jetjock]

Thanks for the information.

Do you know anything about how the member swap agreement works? I'm halfway into my 4 year Platinum membership at CaliforniaWow (though I've hardly ever used it) and will be going to the U.S. in Fall 2008. The guy I bought the membership from promised that I could use it in the States, but as with many of their salespeople, probably isn't the most trustworthy. I'm not sure if even the customer service here could be believed if they were to assure me that it could be used over there.

I considering whether I should keep it and try my luck, or see if I can sell it off now (2 years left), as I've seen a lot of people do on the Pantip webboard. But it sounds like the rates they're giving out now are a LOT cheaper than when I bought mine.

I will try to get you the answer to your question tomorrow when I go there to workout. If I can get an answer, I will pm it to you.

Edited January 24, 2008 by jetjock

[Doza]

Honestly, assuming the gym stays open even 1 year - but more likely many more - and you continue going, its a freakin cheap deal.

[TheDon]

Unless "discipline" is your middle name, forget it! Most people who go in for any form of gym membership quit going on a regular basis after the FIRST full month.

Maybe you dont like watching sweet sexy Thai girls about 23 year olds, 155cm, 43KG of the finest tightest flesh you will ever see, jumping up and down getting all hot and sticky, bending over showing off their never ending curves, all in the aid of looking beautiful for the male of the species.

12k for lifetime does sound cheap i thought it was 2-3k a month for standard membership.

Where do I sign. sounds like heaven then a gym. A nice tight asian butt (female) is probaly the best thing for your eyes. I heard that even cures some cancers