# Marriott Seasons



## cdillon23 (Jun 8, 2005)

I have been looking at some Marriott resales and I noticed some listings list the season as red but the misc. info as sport season.  What does that mean?


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## Dave M (Jun 8, 2005)

There are two different systems for describing Marriott weeks. 

*Interval International*
Interval International ("II") classifies the various weeks of a resort as Red (highest season), Yellow and Green for exchange purposes. Thus, if you own a Red week, it should trade better than a Green week at the same resort. 

However, there are many shades of each color that II doesn't publish. For example, a July 4 beach week and a mid-September beach week at the same resort might both be Red weeks, but the July 4 week will almost certainly trade much better than the September week.

*Marriott*
Marriott classifies weeks at its resorts in various ways. One typical method is to categorize weeks as Platinum (highest season), Gold, Silver and Bronze. Some resorts also have a super-high week or two designated as Platinum-Plus.

Another Marriott method used by a few resorts (e.g., Cypress Harbour) is to designate weeks as Special & Summer (highest seasons) and Sport (shoulder season).

A third Marriott method is a color system (e.g., for Desert Springs) of Red (highest season), White and Blue. 

Marriott uses other classifying methods, depending on the resort. 

Within the Marriott system of floating weeks, you can call ahead to reserve a week - but only within the season you own. Thus, if you own a Sport week at Cypress Harbour  (weeks 18-23 and 34-50), you can only reserve your use within one of those specified weeks.


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## jpmack (Jun 8, 2005)

Following up on the seasons question...If a Marriott owner wanted to trade their higher level Platinum season for a different lower season (eg., Gold), is that trade permitted?


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## Dave M (Jun 8, 2005)

No. You must reserve your Platinum week and then request an internal exchange through II to the Gold season at your resort.

That's as it should be. As you can imagine, Marriott sells as many weeks as are available in a season. Thus, assuming all Gold owners wanted to reserve their weeks, there would be no weeks available for that Platinum owner to reserve. Thus, the Platinum owner must hope (not unrealistically) that a Gold owner will choose to make his/her Gold week available for exchange.

There are a very few resorts that do allow Platinum Plus owners to trade down to Platinum weeks. My guess is that Marriott believes there will be so few Platinum Plus owners (usually comprising only one or two weeks out of 52 at a resort) that want to trade down that it won't be a problem.


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