my teerak got hold of a couple of vouchers for free gym membership for a month recently,so off we go today to the gym and fill in the forms and have a look around the place tour. then its off to the table for the serious hard sell by the trainer and a pretty lady who after taking my BMI on one of those hi tec weighing machines tells me that i am overweight and he can help me as i am 89kg and the machine says my ideal weight is 69kg......it didnt seem to occur to him that i am 89kg of lean rippling muscle honed from years at the gym and the machine is inaccurate sometimes.....anyway on the form they had the cost was 3029 a month plus 2999 joining fee with an additional fee of 999 baht for processing the paperwork.....total of 7027 baht to become a member and your first months membership. now being a khee neeo falang and only turning up because i wanted the free months membership i declined their kind offer at which point they disappeared and came back and told me i could have a special discount and just pay 2200 baht inclusive if i paid for 3 months upfront. not tempted by this i declined once again and the price then dropped to 1500 baht..i declined again stating that i only use the gym 3 or 4 times a week and currently pay 50 baht a day at another gym....so their final pitch was 1099 baht for the fitness or 1299 for fitness and yoga/aerobics if i pay 3 months up front...hows that for a discount?..........

9k baht for lifetime membership. 100 baht a year to renew.

who's lifetime? yours or theirs?

wow.. Im at one of the nicest gym in thailand (take ca wow, make it a thousand time better and it's still crap compared to it) and my membership is only 1.9k per month / 10k joining fee .. Tennis court, pool, unreal sea and mountain view.

Suggest that anyone buying a long term membership in California WOW check the financials of the company by googling CAWOW. They have shown steadily increasing net income loss since Dec 2006 and are on extremely shaky ground financially. However if you can get a membersip dirt cheap (as some TV members have done) , you may be able to luck out if you are able to get enough workout time in by the time they eventually go under or get taken over by another company that might decide ( although unlikely) to honor WOW's longer term memberships).

I think I paid 12000 bht life time membership at any gym in Bangkok. Your story is very familiar. Every time I go to the gym I see the same old process, fake smiles and different people coming over writing down numbers etc. If you really are prepared to walk away you can get the price right down as you saw. Each trainer or sales person has monthly targets to reach or they loose their job.

The trainers are clueless and training and take more interest playing with their phones or looking in the mirror. Anyone who has taken an active interest in their training and done their background research knows more than these muppets who expect 1500bht an hour. They tried a similar overweight tactic with me. The guy used the body fat calipers and came out telling me I was 30% bodyfat and that personal training could get me to a healthy body fat level. I laughed and told him I was around 10-12% and knew this because I have my body fat assessed from people with real qualifications in sport and exercise science. Asking them about HIIT or plyometrics results in a blank stare, the stuff they teach using the muay thai pads is a complete joke.