Do all of these Medicare advantage, Part G and silver sneaker plans allow full access to the gym, facilities and classes or do they restrict to certain days and times. That’s the part I Find strange about some of our friends” free membership.”
I'm a very heavy user of my Renew Active (AARP/UHC supplement) gym benefit. I belong to probably 20 or 30 gyms because I travel fulltime and go to classes wherever I happen to be. The only time I've encountered restricted hours is at Life Time.
Generally, the membership allows me full access to all facilities. At big chains like Crunch, LA Fitness/Esporta, 24-Hour-Fitness, Anytime Fitness, and Workout Anytime, I signed up at one location and have access to any location in the country. I can go to any group fitness classes they offer that are free to members. I can't, for example, go to Pilates Reformer classes that require members to pay extra. Or, I suppose I could go if I'd pay the extra fee--I never looked into it.
Each Planet Fitness operates independently, so I have to sign up for a separate free membership at each one I go to. I've done a couple, but they usually don't really know how to do it so it's kind of a pain. But at least once, I was told I could pay to upgrade the membership to the black card, and not have to sign up at each one separately. What I don't know is if I pay for the upgrade to the black card, will it let me into Planet Fitness locations that don't participate in Medicare insurance programs (not all Planet Fitness locations do).
There's a chain called Chuze, and from what I gathered when I signed up, my membership was going to work only at that one location. And I found out that my membership didn't include any group classes, and I'd have to pay to upgrade my membership to take them. I think that's the first time I ever encountered not having access to group classes.
With YMCAs, a membership at one branch works at any other branch of that particular Y, but doesn't give you access at another city's YMCAs, for example (i.e., no nationwide access to YMCAs with just one membership). City recreation centers operate similarly--if the city has more than one rec center, the membership works at all of them. At both YMCAs and rec centers, I've had access to all group classes that don't require an extra fee.
You mentioned Life Time in particular, and that one operates a little differently. A couple of years ago they instituted limited hours for people who have memberships through their supplement or Advantage plan: Mon-Fri 9:30a-3:00p, Saturday 2:00p-close, Sun all day, Arora Aqua classes any time with reservation. (Arora is their "senior" program.)
I've been to a few yoga classes there, and they're included as long as they're in the hours I have access. You have to make a reservation to take a class there, and at that time pick a numbered spot on the floor. When I've tried to reserve a class that's not in those hours, it won't let me. It also won't let me make a pickleball reservation even if it's within my allowed hours. Same with Arora yoga: it's treated differently from Arora aqua, and I wasn't allowed to make a reservation for an Arora yoga class that was outside my access hours.
To be honest, I'm not quite sure how Life Time works with these insurance memberships because people report all sorts of things. If a reegular person buys a membership, I gather they have access only to clubs that are at the same tier or lower than the one where they signed up. I have access to every club in the country, but I don't know why--is it because all Medicare memberships do, or is it because I happened to sign up for mine in Reston, Virginia, which is in the top tier of clubs?
Renew Active used to be a lot better than Silver Sneakers because it included places like Orange Theory, Club Pilates, Stretch Lab. However as of January 1 of this year, Renew Active dropped all of those and their network now closely resembles the Silver Sneakers network--major chains, lots of YMCAs and rec centers, some local gyms.
I was bummed. I ended up taking 300 reformer classes at Club Pilates during the time Renew Active included them. I found out that Renew Active paid Club Pilates $31 for every class someone took, so they paid out $9,000 on my behalf over 2-1/2 years just for Club Pilates. That's obviously not sustainable, and I was sad but not suprised they stopped offering those expensive classes.
One thing to note is that UHC also has a gym plan called One Pass, for non-Medicare insurance plans (like employer-provided insurance). People generally have to pay extra for One Pass, and there are tiers of membership, but it does include places like Club Pilates.
And for Medicare plans, there's a program called Silver & Fit (I think Aetna offers this) that's similar to their non-Medicare plan called Active & Fit. Getting details on those is a real challenge, but I think you're limited to one "regular" gym membership at a time (e.g. LA Fitness or Crunch, but not both at the same time) and I do know you can pay extra for memberships at premium gyms (which does include places like Club Pilates).
With Renew Active and Silver Sneakers, I'm proof that you can join as many as you want, and you can go to as many in one day as you want.
