Pedants' Paradise

[Serial_Apologist]

Re the 'joining fee' I think this is the first fee, just for 'joining'. . You are then required to pay for each visit. So waiving the joining fee is simply a discount to keep the suckers spending.

At a very popular Gym near me they drive there in their cars, pay to walk on the walking machines and then drive home, oblivious of the irony! I ought to stand there and laugh at them but I can't be 'bovvered'.

I've never worked out why treadmillers {sic} aren't wired into the energy networks while they are harmlessly looking up at on-screen Footsie indices or whatever it is they stare at. I dare say I'll be put in the stocks or pilloried for saying surely this this is what would have been done in mediaeval times?

[Sir Velo]

At a very popular Gym near me they drive there in their cars, pay to walk on the walking machines and then drive home, oblivious of the irony! I ought to stand there and laugh at them but I can't be 'bovvered'.

FOMO?

[oddoneout]

"Join one of our leisure centres this spring and pay no joining fee on Direct Debit and annual membership".

This took a bit of figuring out, because how can no joining fee be paid, regardless of the means? I think what this is trying to say in its clumsy way is that membership has to be paid for but it does not include a joining fee.

The joining fee is said to be for admin costs of setting up your membership, and then there are the fees for actually using the gym thereafter. I think the purpose of the offer you saw is to get people to sign up for a DD or annual payment for those (usually)monthly fees, so the gym gets the money regardless of whether you use it or not. Those paying and not using are a major source of income, so a potential/perceived loss(depending, says my suspicious mind, on what they use your personal details for) on the joining fee may well still make financial sense.