It is all about the shareholder, ***** the customer

Virgin Active is behaving like a business that believes its customers have nowhere else to go. Build dependence, get people into contracts and routines, then steadily reduce the value they receive. This is exactly the monopoly-style behaviour people mean by "enshittification".

Removing the guaranteed weekly reward while dressing it up as a "more personalised experience" feels insulting. A predictable, tangible benefit has been replaced with more complexity and less certainty. Calling that an improvement doesn't make it one.

I strongly suspect there is a spreadsheet somewhere calculating how many unhappy members might leave versus how much money will be saved on those who stay. I haven't seen that calculation, but this decision certainly feels like a consultant's presentation mattered more than members' actual experience.

For me, there is no genuinely comparable, practical alternative offering the same combination of locations and facilities. Switching means disrupting an established routine. That makes staying a necessity, not a vote of confidence.

What angers me most is the apparent willingness to spend customer trust for financial gain. You may save money and still retain members, but don't mistake that retention for satisfaction or loyalty.

If your customers stay because leaving is difficult, that is not a customer-experience success. It is a warning about what your business has become.