Quote:
Originally Posted by Justjean
Thank you Lisa P. I found my resort and it has sort of gold palm symbol by it. Some resorts have more than one of these. What does that mean?
I also saw silver pineapples. Is that a lesser or more informal resort?
Are there other symbols as well? What does it mean if there is no award mark at all?
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The gold palm is the symbol for premier, which is the top rating Interval gives to resorts. The silver pineapple is a preffered resort. For the most part, IMHO this has more to do with the number of amenities that a resort offers than quality of accomadations. Over the years we've seen a lot of variation in resorts with the same rating. The one constant has been the number and types of listed amenities. Amenities such as onsite pools, hot tubs, convenience store, 24 hour desk, restaurants, laundry facitilities and fitness centers.
There are basically three levels premier, silver and nothing. Most Westgate resorts have enough amenities to qualify as premier and, for the most part, Westgate resorts are quality resorts. The should trade reasonably well if you have a resort in a high demand area and you are given a decent week to reserve. As mentioned above, Westgate has been reported to have this nasty habit of giving owners lessor demand weeks when they deposit for exchange. While most timeshare's don't have a great reputation, Westgate is generally consider to be one of the worst for shafting it's owners. You have to watch what they do and demand what you have coming to you. If your float season includes summer weeks and you want to reserve and deposit a summer week, you may have to fight with Westgate to get them to deposit a summer week rather than a November week. Of course they'll give you the song and dance that any red week has the same exchange power, which is a lie. Anyone can look at Interval's travel demand index and see that's not true.
You probably should spend some time with your Interval International resort directory and read through the first 20 or so pages. It explains how Interval works, how they rate resorts, how to exchange and what things they look at when considering who gets what exchange. It will answer a lot of your questions.
