24 Hour Fitness Military: A Freeze With No Time Limit on Orders

24 Hour Fitness writes a military rule into its own membership policies: a freeze for an active-duty transfer or deployment, with no minimum and no maximum length. While frozen you pay no dues. For a member who wants out instead, federal law does the heavy lifting. Under 50 U.S.C. § 3956, orders relocating you for 90 days or more to a place the membership cannot serve end a contract signed before those orders with no early termination charge, and money paid for time after your end date comes back within 60 days, except the rest of the billing period you end in. Those two rules collide with three lines in 24 Hour’s own terms: the commitment cancellation fee, the 30-day notice, and the no-refund policy on prepaid years.

The military freeze in 24 Hour’s policies

The Membership Policies page, read October 9, 2026, lists four reasons that qualify for a freeze. The military one stands apart.

Policies read October 9, 2026. The transfer, volunteer, and military reasons each require a move more than 25 miles from the nearest 24 Hour location you can use.

The conditions: the account must be in good standing with initiation fees, dues, and the annual fee paid, and 24 Hour wants at least ten days of notice. No dues bill during the freeze. The annual fee still does, for as long as the membership stays in effect. A prepaid membership gets its term extended by the length of the freeze, so the months you paid for wait for you. One detail favors the deployed: billing restarts on its own at the end of most freezes, but the policy carves out military freezes longer than six months or with no end date, so a long deployment does not trigger dues while you are still gone. Reactivation is on you.

If you are in a commitment and freeze during it, 24 Hour extends the commitment by the frozen time. That is fair for a deployment you return from. It does nothing for a PCS, which is permanent, so the statute, not the freeze, is the tool for a move.

What 24 Hour charges near Camp Pendleton

24 Hour’s FAQ says it supports the military “by offering membership discounts,” with no amount stated. The old address 24hourfitness.com/military forwarded to a promo page that returned a 404 on October 9, 2026. So the published prices are the ones to compare. The Oceanside Sport club outside Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton showed these online offers:

Read on 24hourfitness.com October 9, 2026 (the club page showed GetFit yearly at $19.98, the join flow at $19.99). The KeepFit+ monthly cart and the KeepFit yearly cart each added a $69.99 annual fee first billed 15 days after signup. The yearly cart broke $304.87 into $299.88 of prepaid dues and a $4.99 activation fee, and said join, activation, and annual fees are non-refundable.

The same join flow carried a line every PCS-bound member should read before signing: “A 30-day notice is required to cancel membership,” with dues and fees payable during the notice period.

24 Hour’s cancellation terms against § 3956

Section 3956 covers a gym membership or fitness program you signed before getting orders to relocate for at least 90 days to a location the contract does not support, plus, since 2023, a contract signed after PCS orders and then blocked by a stop-movement order. The service contract guide has the general rule; here is 24 Hour specifically.

24 Hour column read October 9, 2026 on its FAQ, member policies, and Oceanside join flow; statute read the same day, 2024 edition on GovInfo.

A prepaid year, priced

Take a Marine at Pendleton who bought the yearly KeepFit plan: $299.88 of prepaid dues plus the $4.99 activation fee. PCS orders to Camp Lejeune arrive four months in. North Carolina had no 24 Hour club in the company’s sitemap on October 9, 2026; its club pages covered California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas, and Washington.

Under 24 Hour’s FAQ, the Marine keeps access to a gym across the country for eight more months and gets nothing back. Under § 3956(f), the Marine’s claim is the dues paid for time after the termination date, refunded within 60 days. If the termination takes effect right at the four-month mark, that is eight months, 8 x $24.99 = $199.92. If it lands mid-month, the gym keeps the rest of that month and the claim is 7 x $24.99 = $174.93. 24 Hour could argue the billing period is the whole year, which would leave nothing to refund, since the statute lets a provider keep “the remainder of the monthly or similar billing period.” The plan is sold and quoted at $24.99 a month, which supports reading its billing period as monthly. The $4.99 activation fee and the $69.99 annual fee, which 24 Hour labels non-refundable, are the smaller argument; ask for the unused share of the annual fee under the same subsection.

A deployment from Pendleton that returns to Pendleton is the freeze’s job instead: the prepaid term stretches by the frozen months, and the only charge that keeps running is the annual fee.

End a 24 Hour membership on orders

Terminate 24 Hour Fitness under § 3956

1. Find the first page of your agreement. It shows the commitment period or prepaid term, which tells you how much money is in play.
2. Write a notice with your name, member number or check-in code, home club, the end date, and “I am terminating under 50 U.S.C. § 3956; refund amounts paid for time after that date under § 3956(f).” The letter generator drafts the gym version.
3. Attach orders showing a relocation of 90 days or more.
4. Send it to 24 Hour Fitness, Attn: Cancel, P.O. Box 787, Carlsbad, CA 92018 with tracking, and also send the request through My24 or the online contact form so there is an electronic record.
5. List any add-on members you want ended. 24 Hour’s FAQ says ending the primary membership does not end add-ons.
6. Call 866-308-8179 only after the written notice is out, and note the date and name of anyone who quotes a 30-day notice or a cancellation fee.

Add-ons, spouses, and training packages

A spouse on your account as an add-on keeps accruing dues and annual fees unless you cancel that add-on separately, by 24 Hour’s own FAQ. If you signed for the add-on and pay for it, name it in your notice. A spouse’s own separate membership is covered only in the death, catastrophic injury, or stop-movement cases in § 3956(a)(4), as the family guide explains. If your spouse is staying behind near a club, an add-on may be worth keeping.

Training packages are harder. 24 Hour’s FAQ says fitness service fees are “immediately earned” and non-refundable unless the agreement says otherwise. The statute covers a “fitness program” without defining it, so list the training agreement in your notice and ask for unused sessions back. If 24 Hour keeps money the statute says is yours, installation legal assistance can review it, and the enforcement options include a DOJ complaint. The PCS money moves list covers the bigger items on the same orders, starting with the apartment lease.

The law behind this: 50 U.S.C. § 3956

Termination of certain consumer contracts: gym memberships and fitness programs: read the statute , or read § 3956 in plain English, with its enforcement record .