LA Fitness in Greenbelt to Honor Bally’s Lifetime Memberships

In late November LA Fitness purchased 171 Bally’s health clubs across the country, including associated customer contracts, but not lifetime memberships. As reported in the , many customers had paid thousands of dollars for the lifetime memberships, only to find out that the memberships were not truly “lifetime.”

Customers took to online message boards and forums to share their stories, one going so far as to create Ballyssuit.com, “an online forum created by Michigan resident Jeff Levy with the ambitions of forming a class action law suit.”

Before any suits were filed, LA Fitness released a statement on their website explaining that they would in fact, honor the lifetime memberships from Bally’s:

"LA Fitness has decided to simplify the access rules and give all of the acquired Bally Total Fitness (“BTF”) members access to current LA Fitness clubs as described below," reads the statement, which also bullet points the following guidelines:

• BTF “Local” Members will have access to LA Fitness clubs and acquired BTF clubs in the state of enrollment*;
• BTF “National” Members will have access to those clubs in all states*; and
• Acquired BTF members who only have single club access will continue to have access to that single club (or, if that club has closed, to another BTF or LAF club nearby).
• *Except for New York clubs (unless you enrolled in NY) and clubs designated now or in the future as Signature and Athletic clubs.

Patch spoke with Ally White, operations manager at the , to find out how these changes will affect local lifetime membership customers.

“We are honoring the lifetime memberships from Bally’s,” White said. “Some memberships with annual renewals will be charged $1 per year, but customers are welcome to call me with any questions about their membership.”

Bally’s/LA Fitness members can contact White by calling 301-441-8300.