Money Hack: How to save 50% on your Virgin Active membership
Virgin has partnered with AIA Insurance to help you feel great and save money at the same time.
The healthier you are, the less likely you are to make an insurance claim. That's gold to health and life insurers because it means they are less likely to have to pay out on claims as often.
To promote a healthy lifestyle, AIA Insurance has created a program called AIA Vitality. Members receive a host of health-related benefits including a staggering 50% off select Virgin Active memberships.
Virgin Active is one of the nicer gyms around but the price tag can make you think twice about joining. But with 50% off? Then it becomes a no-brainer.
Read on to find out how to lock in this sweet deal.
The hack
First, you have to become an AIA Vitality member. You can do this by purchasing AIA Life Insurance through an adviser. You can also look at RAC life insurance, RACQ life insurance, myOwn health insurance and GMHBA health insurance.
Here are the steps:
- Purchase a participating policy. After you've purchased your policy from one of the participating providers, you're immediately eligible for AIA Vitality membership.
- Open your email. Your insurer will send you a welcome email with your policy number. A welcome email from AIA Vitality will automatically arrive 24-48 hours later. Check your spam folder if you can't find them.
- Follow the AIA link. The email from AIA Vitality will have a link to the Vitality registration page. Click on it.
- Enter your information. On the AIA Vitality registration page, enter a few bits of personal information and your policy number from your insurer's welcome email. This only takes about a minute. Once you're in, you'll get an AIA Vitality membership number.
- Give your Vitality membership number to Virgin Active. You can now scoop up your sweet 50% discount!
What is AIA Vitality?
AIA Vitality is the rewards program for AIA life insurance members that helps you make real changes to your health and wellbeing with every healthy choice you make.
Members earn Vitality Points for taking active steps to improve their health. These points can be redeemed for a wide range of rewards from AIA and its partner retailers, including reductions on your insurance premiums, spa discounts, cheap movie tickets, shopping rewards and discounted travel packages.
You can earn reward points simply by undertaking health checks and assessments, which can be completed online and with health professionals. The relevant health checks can include:
- Health reviews
- Mental wellbeing assessments
- Vaccinations
- Dental assessments
- AIA Vitality Health Checks
- Fitness and nutrition assessments
But what if I don't need insurance?
If you already have life and health insurance policies that you spent ages researching and settling on, it might not make sense to switch. Especially since health insurance already costs a lot of money every month and plays such an important role should you desperately need medical attention.
So the easiest way to take advantage of this offer is through one of the life insurance products. The author of this article took out a life insurance policy through one of the providers and it ended up costing him a total of around $8 per fortnight (the same amount he was paying for life insurance through his super, which he promptly cancelled). A week later, he was able to reduce his Virgin active membership from $90 per fortnight to $45 per fortnight. That's a net savings of $45 per fortnight.
So even if you don't need insurance, there are very few reasons not to take advantage of this offer.
When do the savings kick in?
You're eligible to start saving immediately, but there are a few caveats:
- It only works on Virgin Active month-to-month membership plans (which luckily don't have joining fees at the moment). You can't apply this towards the cheaper annual membership.
- If you're already on a contract with Virgin Active, you have to wait until that contract runs out before you can apply the discount. For members currently on month-to-month plans, that merely means waiting until the next fortnightly direct debit. People on annual membership plans may unfortunately have to wait quite a while depending on how much time is left on their contract. New members can start saving right away.
Are there any other benefits?
There are tons of other benefits of being an AIA Vitality member. Here are a few:
- Every time you work out, you collect points that can be redeemed for gift cards.
- You can receive discounts on fitness products, such as Fitbits and Garmin fitness trackers.
- You can receive discounts on other services like spa sessions, Fitness first memberships and movie tickets.
How do earn Vitality Points through my Virgin Active membership?
Collecting Vitality Points unlocks more discounts and rewards for AIA Vitality members. Here's how you can earn points:
- Visits. You earn 100 Vitality points every time you visit a Virgin Active club. All you need to do is swipe your Virgin Active card.
- Fitness activities. You can earn a further 100 points a day for fitness-related activities at Virgin Active. These activities must be trackable via apps or fitness devices connected to the AIA Vitality program.
- Organised fitness events. Take part in special fitness events through Virgin Active, such as running an organised marathon, and you can earn extra points above the 100-point cap. Your annual cap for physical activities is 15,000 points.
What are the benefits of Virgin Active?
Virgin Active has four health clubs in Sydney and two in Melbourne. Virgin Active's health clubs are high-quality facilities offering:
- Spas
- Saunas
- Swimming pools
- Modern fitness equipment
- An enormous range of group classes, including Pilates, yoga, Zumba, body combat and kickboxing
- Personalised training sessions
What are the terms and conditions of Virgin Active membership?
AIA Vitality members who sign up for Virgin Active membership must follow all the terms and conditions set by Virgin Active Australia.
- Activation fee. The activation fee is non-refundable and is not discounted for AIA Vitality members.
- Home club. Members must designate a home club when they apply. However, members have access to all Virgin Active clubs in Australia and limited access to clubs in other countries.
- Commitment period. Members must commit to an initial minimum of four weeks.
- Freezing membership. It is possible to freeze your membership for a period of time but it does incur a fee.
- Cooling-off period. There is a 7-day cooling-off period from the day you signed the contract, allowing you to cancel in that time and receive a refund on membership fees. Virgin Active will not refund the activation fee.
