I know i missed my exercise class but so what?

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I pay in advance for my Pilates class. It is £30 a session
You can cancel the class as long as you give 24hrs notice, if not you lose out.
Quite reasonablely you can't be more than 5 mins late.
On Thursday I had an appointment before my class which over ran significantly, on top of that I encountered three lots of temporary lights and traffic has backed up.
By the time I got to the car park I was 10 mins late. There was no point rushing, I'm late, I've missed out. There isn't a reception where I could have explained this to, just the instructor doing her thing with the group.
I went home.
I got an email which was,imo , quite snotty, telling me i should have let them know if i wasn't going to turn up so they could have given that place to someone on the waiting list.

My feeling is I've paid for that space, whether I was there or not.

If they gave it to someone else they would have had £30 from them as ' as a place has become available '
I wouldn't have got my money back as it clearly says no refunds if you are late or a no show.
Therefore, I feel like the sharp tone of the email is a bit ridiculous. The company hasn't lost out and as far as I can imagine, most people want to turn up and don't deliberately miss classes once they've paid for them.

What do others think?

. If I'd arrived to the class, but couldn't go in, it wouldn't occur to me to email after the fact to apologise. It's too late for the teacher to do anything about it. I'd apologise and explain at the next lesson.

No way would I apologise. They sound very greedy to me.

That would really piss me off. Unless they were planning to refund you if they filled your space, they can get stuffed.

I'd have messaged at the time to say you'd been late so as per their policy you didn't come in. Bit late for that now though.
Just respond to the email you got saying what you did here.

30 quid!! I have a fabulous, very experienced teacher, who only charges £8.
YANBU OP

No she does not need to apologise. She bought a ticket, she didn’t come, she wouldn’t get a refund as per T&Cs. The customer lost, the business took the money and are not out of pocket. It is just pure greed.

Yes the email was indeed rude.

Tell her to shove her piles up her bottom and don't go again or eat large quantities of baked beans before your next class and ruin the ambiance with flatulence. Or does she have rules about farting too??

Strange logic.

If they had someone on the spot to take your place, surely they could have asked them to hold on for 4 minutes 30 seconds and then asked them in when there was no sign of you? They have a defined cut off point for admittance, so they can use it.

Silly of them to send admonitory emails to paying customers instead

This is a pretty standard policy at many exercise classes. I would think it's to prevent people from regularly booking a space and then not turning up, although I appreciate that is not what happened in the OPs case.

I have a gym membership that includes classes. If I book a class, and don't turn up, then I am 'fined' the cost of the class, even though I haven't paid any extra over and above my normal membership. However, when I missed a class once due my car breaking down, I explained the situation next time I was in, and they refunded my 'fine'. Perhaps if the OP sent an apology and explanation, they may waive the fee.

I thought that if you’ve paid for the session, they can’t sell that same spot on to another person without offering you reimbursement less reasonable fees if they’ve incurred them re-advertising your spot.

I wouldn’t have thought to email because surely the teacher was busy getting the class started, not busy with last minute e-admin? It would be worth asking what they suggest doing if you were within the 5-10 minute range of late and if slipping into the back of the class as others had suggested would have been permissible.

I find it odd that they emailed: was it the first one you’ve missed?

With snotty comments like that I tend to just waft back "sorry but I had a medical emergency"

That tends to shut them up.

So would I

£30 a session is a bloody rip off, it's £6 here!

But cost aside, YANBU. You've paid, so what difference does it make to them if you don't turn up?

If you had missed a music lesson people here would slaughter you. But for some reason it's ok be disrespectful with other instructors' time.

You're right. Id just send a brief email saying you were trying to get there on time but ended up pulling into the car park 10 mins after class had started and didn't want to interrupt so went home. It's not your fault. Just one of those things

I wouldn't "slaughter" anyone for missing a pre-paid music lesson for an unavoidable reason like traffic.

I don’t get the issue either. OP didn’t come, but she’s paid for it so she’s paying the penalty. I’d be furious getting an email like that

For reformer? £25-£30 is pretty common where I am.

These tend to be automatic emails that are just spat out when classes are missed so I wouldn’t take it personally! It could be they have a lot of no-shows and would just prefer a fuller class.

I would have emailed as I’m neurotic about being late/missing appointments etc.
As you didn’t you should now email saying you had burst tyre and no phone signal, then she’ll be off your back.

The instructor is not out of pocket. What’s the problem?

Not for missing it, no. But for not communicating why it was missed, surely? It's rude to not just turn up somewhere when you are expected.

I wouldn’t expect for a second that a Pilates instructor in a class full of students would be checking their emails

You think that makes it ok? You think you don't have to treat other people with respect just because you paid for something?

The email is ridiculous.

My teacher understands that if someone doesn't turn up it is because something has happened at the last moment - and no-one would take the spot that late anyway.

I'd answer that you aren't in possession of a crystal ball to predict being ten minutes late. Had you have one you would had inform them and save yourself a moot journey.