Long Zhiren

I have two Saver Biz Class one-way award tickets 67.5k each for SYD-SFO nonstop on Monday Feb 18, 2012. I need to change my travel date to around Monday May 6. The two tickets are from a gold and a silver account.

Here's where I'm looking for your best opinions of what to do.
There's no 67.5k award availability that shows up for May 6, but the UA rep was kind enough to put me on a waiting list should any show up.

Should I
(1) just pay to cancel the tickets, get the miles back, and book new 40k coach saver awards? do it now or later? I kind of like the alternate routes of NZ SYD-AKL-LAX-etc or the AC route of SYD-YVR-SFO...
(2) keep waiting (something tells me the chances are nil) until what? nothing shows up and I still have to do (1) and then pay additional charges for close-in award booking?
(3) There is a 67.5k award for SYD-ICN-LAX-SJC. OZ is excellent. But back-to-back 11 hr flights, and an overnight at LAX...yeccchhh--actually I'd probably just book SYD-ICN-LAX and then use some of my gazillion AA miles for the LAX-SJC connection. Destination change fees + airline change fees?
(4) ???

What would you do?

Thanks

aacharya

What I'd do:

1. Get an EF subscription, so you know when space opens.

2. If I had the miles, I'd "protect" myself on saver tickets, if you're
willing to pay for the redeposit fees as "insurance".

3. I'd decide if I should split the PNR (more likely space opens one seat
at a time versus two).

Long Zhiren

Thanks for the reply.
I learned a few things.
EF looks interesting to me, but it still looks like paying for a non-sure-thing. Yes more saver awards sometimes become available 90 days out and at the last minute, but that's not guaranteed. So I wound up downgrading to E+ coach saver seats while those were still available on May 6.
-When downgrading from a Business First Saver to a Coach Saver, the difference in miles & taxes get refunded to your accounts, without charge. I suspect that upgrading results in the cabin-change fees.
-I wonder if my Business First Savers on Feb 18 became available for someone else?
-In my case, the taxes really didn't get refunded, I got charged for the difference. Airport taxes are the same regardless of cabin, but taxes did go up since I first booked. From May 2012 to Nov 2012, the airport taxes look to have gone up on the order of 5-10%.
-I got dropped out of the waiting list for Business First Saver seats. The waiting list for saver seats may be a perk for 1k's? I'm just gold this year but must have lucked out with a nice 1k rep the first time I called, who put me in the waiting list. (1) I didn't realize that 1k reps were different from gold reps. (2) the waiting list doesn't exist for golds. CO used to put me on such waiting lists when I was silver, but maybe the new UA doesn't exactly do that?
-For Coach Saver, I'm now pondering paying for an airline change and going to AC service SYD-YVR-SFO for nicer seats and IFE. UA's long-haul 744 squish service leaves things to be desired.

These could be useful statistics. Maybe I should list something similar. Maybe listing routes could be more handy. Other than that, what does it mean to be Plat on 4/9 and Gold on 6/25? Did you get moved to a lower tier somewhere between 4/9 and 6/25, or was the 4/9 flight booked when you were still Plat?