Boston Sports Clubs decides to freeze member payments after all

with all the negative press and their already dire financial straits, i don't see how they survive this. Assuming they'll get bought out wholesale by a competitor, or a private equity firm will buy them for parts and strip any remaining meat off the bone before folding it.

fall flat on their face has been my silver lining to all this. Before people jump on the flame train to talk to me about "OH THE EMPLOYEES THO!" stuff it. Employees will find other work. WORKERS always do. These stuffed suits expensing their golf trips and getting huge bonuses for literally doing nothing need to get in the bread line with the rest of us. They likely won't, but they should be.
Full disclosure: My company has been swirling the drain well before this, has had recent layoffs, and as of today has continued their series of terrible decisions by raising prices on older product to push people into newer product or extort money out of them for continuing on with legacy product. Which is going to push our current dwindling roster of customers right into the arms of our *much* cheaper competition. Watching these Bentley grads fail in slow motion while collecting a check has been fun if not a great education on how to fail at business.

We had a saga with these dipsh--ts last year. My wife wanted to join just for the school year; Knowing that they have a history of not letting you go, I got a one-time card number to pay for the 9 months of membership, and we gave them advance notice of when we would be canceling. During that year we also took our kids to their gym for swim lessons a couple times and paid for those with a regular card. Not surprisingly they tried to keep charging us after our cancellation date, and when the card didn't work because the authorized limit had run out as planned, they went into their files, found our name from the swim lessons, and charged that card a $25 fee. Obviously since that was totally unauthorized we disputed with the credit card company and got a refund, at which point they sent the $25 to a collection agency. We went to the gym in person and threatened to sue the gym manager and the company unless they agreed to withdraw the collection action and they agreed, but a month later the collection agency said it was still valid. We filed a complaint with the MA AG, sent confirmation of that complaint to the gym manager (with his name on it), and finally got back an email confirming the $25 was canceled, which we sent to the collection agency and said if they continued to seek collection we would sue them under federal credit laws. They finally went away after that.
Basically, never join a Town Sports facility if you value your time, money, or credit score.