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Planet Fitness – an extremely disappointing and financially stressful experience

I have honestly never experienced such a frustrating and dysfunctional membership process. My experience with Planet Fitness has been an endless cycle of administrative errors, poor communication, wasted time and, in my view, an excessive focus on getting money from the customer rather than actually resolving problems.

I linked my Sanlam Reality+ benefit to my Planet Fitness membership. The sales consultant at the Lynnwood club took more than a month just to get the information on the forms correct. I was made to complete the forms approximately eight times because of ongoing errors.

I paid the R975 activation fee on 21 August. Despite paying, I still could not access the club because of problems with their Jotform process. For more than a month I was driving back and forth to the club trying to get a basic membership administration issue resolved. Nobody seemed capable of fixing it.

Eventually, towards the end of September, the contract was loaded — and then Planet Fitness attempted to debit my account for double the amount I had been told by the sales consultant.

I was then told that the debit order had failed because I had supposedly taken too long to accept the mandate. The problem? I received no SMS, no call and no meaningful communication informing me that the mandate had been sent or that there was anything I needed to accept.

Yesterday, after all of this, I went into the club and paid the amount in person.

Today, I returned to the club — and I was denied access.

I was told that my contract had apparently been cancelled and that they now needed to redo the entire contract. I was also told that I would have to pay the joining fee again.

This is completely unacceptable.

What makes this even more frustrating is that I had previously been a paying member for approximately two years. I was then hospitalised with a serious injury and, while I was in hospital, I tried to put my membership on hold or cancel it. I received no meaningful response, yet Planet Fitness continued attempting to debit my account.

The manager from the first club never once contacted me to resolve the underlying administrative problem. Yet when the contract was eventually loaded, I suddenly received a call regarding money they claimed was outstanding and a supposed debt write-off.

From my experience, the problem isn't simply one employee making a mistake. It is the complete lack of accountability and communication throughout the process.

I have spent weeks driving to and from the club, repeatedly completing the same paperwork, paying money, trying to get assistance and explaining the same situation over and over again — only to end up with no access and being told to start the entire process again and pay another joining fee.

A gym membership should not be this difficult.

I am extremely disappointed with Planet Fitness and with the way my situation has been handled. The repeated administrative failures, lack of communication and attempts to charge me for problems that arose from their own processes have left me feeling that the customer is simply expected to keep paying while Planet Fitness takes little responsibility for fixing its mistakes.

I would strongly advise anyone considering joining to carefully read the terms, keep records of every payment and communication, and make sure they understand exactly what they are being charged for.

For me, this has been an incredibly frustrating and financially stressful experience. I expected a professional gym membership experience. Instead, I have spent weeks trying to get basic administration sorted out.

Planet Fitness needs to seriously address its internal processes, communication and customer service.