Tire selection

Where will you be driving the van and how do you intend to use it? Will you be driving in dry weather, rain, snow? With it be a daily driver or just when needed. What are the roads like where you are? Out of the two you mentioned the milestar has a better tread design for a minivan. However it also depends on what tire places you have around you and how much you want to spend. Tires are the first safety item on a vehicle and most of the time, trying to use the lowest priced ones will bite you because they will not wear very well or will cause other issues.

For that usage I doubt you will find a good tire at that price point but you don't need to go much higher to get much better tires. Neither of the two you listed would be good in wet or snow conditions with the tread patterns they have.
You might want to look at something like a Continental Procontact, the Uniroyal Tiger Paws, BFGoodrich Advantage. The reason I put the Continental first is that they are a good tire in most driving and last a long time, they are not a great tire in deep snow but anything other than a real snow tire seldom is. We have a set on a Journey and they have close to 50K on them and are still showing 1/2 tread depth. Depending on where you are shopping you may have a very limited selection at this time as many tires are made overseas and the plants are not running as much. You may want to look at Tire Rack and get some ideas then call a local shop, You mentioned the thruway, are you in NY?

Well you're a neighbor then.
AWD helps, but not as much as you would think because most are not full time AWD. Instead they drive either the front or rear axle as the primary drive and activate the other axle as needed. In your case the van uses the front axle most of the time and activates the rear axle when it detects a loss of traction in the front. The catch to that is because of the way the system works you don't really get the benefit of the AWD until the van is already in trouble. So using a very marginal tire doesn't really help a lot with AWD, but a good all season tread can make it better, they are still no substitute for a true snow tire in real snow and slush but the way they maintain the roads these days helps that a lot.
The other part of it involves tire life and wear. The better tires will normally wear better and longer than the lower end tires and have a better tread design that improves traction, noise and ride quality as well. Now if you were driving a taxi or an emergency response vehicle I would say the tire choice is different. That is why I asked what your usage is.
Overall most tires made these days are better than they used to be, but you still want a good tread pattern and compound that will flex. If you look at the reviews of the Westlake RS Sport tire you posted you can see that it is a recommended tire for drifting, that tells me it's a harder compound tire and the tread pattern is a summer only style with very little cross tread siping to clear away water or snow. The other one has a better tread design but it also is a harder compound with minimal siping. Both tell me it's a more summer tread design. In the end though it is your decision, I would say to read the reviews and look at different options. Then see what tires fit your budget and will work for the driving you do.