Australia, New Zealand & the South Pacific - Island for a few days from AUS

Hi

My wife and I will be traveling to Australia for 3 weeks. For 5 days or so we'd like to go to an island in the South Pacific. We really are clueless when it comes to what is considered good or bad and how easy or hard it is to get to places so that's why I'm here. The one thing we want is a beach resort / town that is not in AUS as we're heading to Geroge's island as part of our trip.

We of course would like to do this as point/mile efficiently as possible but can shell out some $ if we need to. I'm really looking for suggestions here. Most of my miles are with UA and DL and most of my hotel points are with Marriott or Starwood.

Any suggestions??

Thanks in advance!

Using award means flying Air NZ to one of the islands they serve. That is

Hawaii
Norfolk Island (technically part of Australia although quite different to the mainland)
Vanuatu (Port Vila)
New Caledonia (Noumea)
Fiji (Nadi)
Tonga (N'ukualofa)
Niue
Samoa (Apia)
Cook Islands (Rarotonga)
Tahiti (Papeete)

Note some of these islands only have 1 or 2 flights a week, but others have daily or more than daily frequencies. I haven't checked what routings UA Mileage Plus will actually allow.

In Australia NZ flies to/from Cairns, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.

Probably only Hawaii, Fiji and Tahiti have hotel chains you can use hotel points with.

What time of year are you looking at travelling? What kind of island holiday do you want - there is a wide variety of options in the South Pacific?

With the stipulation that you only have 5 days to play with then IMHO that rules out Tahiti and Hawaii as the travel time it takes to get to each from the east coast of australia is more than 9 hours flying time, so you'll spend the best part of a day travelling each way which hardly leaves enough time to enjoy the country.

Fiji would be my recommendation due to there being hotels where you can use your points and the short(er) travel time.

Thanks for the suggestions, i love it. I'll start doing some reasearch based on that list.

We're planning for late October for a time frame.

Using points isn't a must, just would be a nice cost savings but not necessary. Maybe if I put it this way. If someone was coming to Boston and wanted to use points but only was coming once I'd advise them to just pay $ and stay at the liberty hotel. A truly unique place with no other real comparable point options in the city.

We're definitely looking for luxury and a romantic spot but not complete peace and quiet if that makes sense? We're a big fan of the beach bars on orient beach in St. Martin if that gives any point of reference. We'd like that scene to be available but not our only option...

Maybe I'm asking too much...

We're definitely looking for luxury and a romantic spot but not complete peace and quiet if that makes sense? We're a big fan of the beach bars on orient beach in St. Martin if that gives any point of reference. We'd like that scene to be available but not our only option...

Maybe I'm asking too much...

Until you mentioned beach bars I was going to Suggest Lord Howe Island - part of Australia but very romantic.