If you own a gym, boutique fitness studio, or child activity center, you likely sell class packs or punch cards. These packages often come with expiration dates—90 days, 6 months, or sometimes a year.
For years, that model worked without much scrutiny. But, that is starting to change. Recent lawsuits against major fitness brands, including SoulCycle, have raised a new and important question:
Could putting an expiration date on class packs violate consumer protection laws?
If you sell prepaid classes, you need to understand what is happening and how it may affect your business.
Why This Issue Is Suddenly Getting Attention
Traditionally, gyms treated class packs as simple prepaid services. A client pays for a set number of classes and agrees to use them within a certain time period. However, courts and regulators have begun to look at these transactions differently. Instead of focusing on what studios call the product, they are asking a more practical question:
What did the client actually buy?
If the answer looks like “stored monetary value,” then consumer protection laws may apply.
The Core Legal Argument
The lawsuits challenging expiration dates rely on a straightforward argument:
- A client pays money upfront (for example, $200 for 10 classes)
- That purchase creates a bank of usable value
- The client should not lose that value simply because time passed
From a legal standpoint, that begins to resemble a gift card or stored value product.
Federal law and many state laws strictly regulate gift cards. These laws often limit or prohibit expiration dates, restrict fees that reduce value, and require clear disclosures
If a class pack looks like a gift card, courts may apply those same rules.
Why This Creates Risk for Gym Owners
This issue does not mean that all class packs must last forever. However, it does mean that your current structure may create legal exposure.
Courts and regulators focus on how your class packs function in practice. If your structure includes the following, your risk increases:
- A clear dollar value tied to each class
- Credits that function like cash within your system
- Short expiration periods
- Strict “use it or lose it” policies
- No ability to extend, pause, or recover unused value
When those elements exist, a court may determine that your class pack operates as stored value. If that happens, your expiration policy could be challenged as a consumer protection violation.
What the SoulCycle Lawsuits Actually Mean
There is a lot of misinformation circulating about these cases. They did not create a universal rule that “class packs cannot expire.” Instead, they highlight a growing legal trend:
Courts are willing to look past labels and evaluate the substance of the transaction.
If your class pack behaves like money, the law may treat it like money. That shift is what creates risk.
How to Evaluate Your Current Model
You should take a close look at how your class packs are structured today.
Ask yourself:
- Do clients view their purchase as “money on account”?
- Can credits be used interchangeably like cash?
- Does expiration result in forfeiting money already paid?
- Do your agreements clearly explain the nature of the purchase?
If you hesitate on any of those questions, your model may need adjustment.
Practical Ways to Reduce Your Risk
You can still offer class packs, but you need to structure them carefully.
Consider the following strategies:
1. Define the Purchase as Access to Services, Not Stored Value: Frame the class pack as a limited license to attend classes within a defined timeframe.
2. Avoid Treating Credits Like Currency: The more your system resembles a dollar-for-dollar exchange, the greater your risk.
3. Build in Reasonable Flexibility: Allow extensions, pauses, or limited rollovers. This reduces the appearance of forfeiture.
4. Add a Written Agreement: Your agreement should clearly explain expiration terms, limitations on use, and the nature of the purchase. Clear drafting plays a major role in defending these policies.
5. Consider Membership-Based Alternatives: Ongoing memberships often create less legal risk than standalone prepaid packages.
Why This Matters Now
Consumer protection enforcement is increasing, especially in industries that rely on recurring payments and prepaid services.
Fitness businesses sit directly in that target zone.
If your policies do not align with current legal trends, you could face refund demands for expired credits, disputes or chargebacks, regulatory inquiries, and potential litigation
This is not a theoretical issue. It is already happening in the industry.
The Bottom Line
You can still use expiration dates on class packs, but you must do so carefully.
Recent lawsuits have made one thing clear:
If your class packs look like stored money, expiration policies may create legal risk.
Gym owners who ignore this shift may find themselves defending policies that once felt standard.
Take Action Before It Becomes a Problem
Most studios have not updated their membership agreements or class pack structures in years. That creates a gap between how their business operates and how the law now evaluates these transactions.
A proactive review allows you to:
- Identify risk before it turns into a dispute
- Update your agreements to reflect current law
- Protect the revenue your business depends on
If you want to ensure your class packs and membership model comply with evolving consumer protection standards, now is the time to address it.
