Anytime Fitness

Very disappointed with this location. At first the owner and manager seemed friendly and happy that I was visiting their location as my main anytime fitness gym was in Hooksett. They welcomed me in and I enjoyed their gym. That being said, the manager Jon at the Amherst location explained to me that I was eligible for a transfer from Hooksett to Amherst, but that it was more expensive than what I was currently paying and they were not going to honor my cheaper pricing. I politely declined the offer as I was not interested in paying more to make Amherst my main location and was told that I would therefore be locked out from ever visiting the Amherst location again. I can understand that Amherst is not generating direct revenue from me, but locking me out of the location solely because I wouldn’t buy into their more expensive rate seems childish to me. It’s not like I’m costing them expenses, or preventing their customers from using equipment. If Amherst doesn’t see the value in a customer focused business plan, then even if my situation changes in the future, this isn’t a franchise location I plan on giving my business or even recommend.
Edit ⁸⁄₁₅
After contacting Anytime Fitness Corporate, a few other locations across the country and also reading a personal message from the owner at the Amherst location. I finally wanted to spend the time to update my review. This is a direct response to reply I received publicly from the owner addressing my review. In a nutshell Transfers do NOT work on a «approve or deny» system based on the security system. In fact there is no approve or deny system that corporate enforces or even is interested in. I confirmed this from contacting Anytime Fitness Corporate. Even worse is the Amherst owner sent me a personally message stating my denied access to his location was an automatic process that he has no control over. I’ll quote: «When we hit „decline“ the member is automatically locked out of our location, as this is part of the security system and how, sadly, the system is pre-​set up.» The owner continues to say that he wasn’t able to keep my current price rate because it was lower than their «presale rate» and even goes as far to put blame on corporate saying «it would be a breach of my franchise agreement with corporate to offer anyone a lower rate than our presale rate.» I called corporate and a few other locations around the country. What the owner says is absolute bullshit. He can price the membership cost at whatever he wants. He was perfectly able to preserve my rate, but chose not to and locked me out of his location. At the end of his personal message within Unilocal he asks me to remove my one star rating since the two problems I have (being denied access to the gym for an automatic corporate process and preserving my current rate) are completely out of his control. After I decline and call him out on his bullshit, the owner backpedals «While we do have certain „leeways“, offering less than my presale rate is definitely not one of them and falls under an ethical code. I promised my members nobody will receive a rate below $ 39.99 and I intend to keep that promise.» He completely contradicts himself. First it was a franchise agreement (lie) and he was contractually unable to honor my current rate, now it was his own personal code of ethics that was preventing him. The only reason he adjusts the blame on himself is when I call him out for blaming it on corporate. He is willing to lie to his potential clients in order to remain blameless from his own decision making. That’s behavior I expect from a child. It gets better. He applies the shifting of blame when I call him out on the «automatic process» of my digital key (that I already paid for) saying «As far as I understand it, denied transfers are locked out (jon handled the lockout — not me) after denying a transfer. I don’t understand how it could work otherwise, or people would just sign up at a small express club then go use a larger more expensive club instead.». After shifting blame that his employee locked me out he continues to state that in reality he has NO CLUE how denied transfers actually work. Interesting since in both his personal message to me and the public reply to my initial review he says «we honestly had no other choice when you denied the transfer as a lockout is automatic». So is it automatic or it’s outside his understanding. I’ll add that removing/​giving access to a digital key is a simple process maintained by Anytime Fitness’s software that they lease or purchased to manage their clients. It’s really simple. Instead of honoring my rate, he attempted to strong arm me into paying more to use his gym and when that didn’t work, he denied me access to his gym. The gym was always nearly empty, I wasn’t taking equipment away from his paying clients and the only overhead costs I used was the water to stay hydrated. He alienated a potential client because his code of ethics required another $ 10-​$ 15 from me.