American Express Membership Rewards - Hawaii with Membership Rewards

I was wondering if anyone had any better ideas on using MR points for resort stay in Hawaii. I have never been to hawaii, so dont really have a good handle on which island has what to offer. I have looked at the big island and maui as probably best suited for our family trip with younger children.
Herein lies the question. How do i get the best resort for six nights jan 26-feb 2, with 265k MR points. Straight MR reward on the hotels offered? Transfer to some other program? Any ideas on resorts and transfer options would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

If you don't have elite status with Hilton, sign up for the Hilton Amex or Hilton Visa which will give you Silver status. Then transfer 88k miles to Hawaiian Airlines and from there to Hilton, that gives you 176k points.

Actually, you need 175k Hilton points.. and you'll get some from the credit card signup.. so you won't need to transfer this many Amex points.

175k Hilton points gets you an ALON award (only redeemable by elite members, that's why I told you to get the Hilton credit card if you don't already have Hilton status)...

6 nights at the Hilton Waikoloa Village (http://www.hiltonwaikoloavillage.com/) on the Big Island seems like a good choice for family w/ kids.

Then you've still got plenty of points left over for those flights...

(By the way, make the reservation on points before making the points tranfer...)

Thanks for the feedback, that seems like a decent use of points.

You'll have to move quickly though if you're looking to check in on Jan 26, and you make look for feedback in other forums on how long it takes to transfer Amex --> Hawaiian and Hawaiian --> Hilton. The reason I suggested that path is that the ratios are 1 :1 and 1 :2, getting you 2 Hilton points per Amex point instead of the 1.3 you get transferring directly.

But at this short juncture you might actually have to go Amex-->Hilton directly, requiring more points for the award, and of course it's all dependent on Hilton having award availability for your dates.