Same here. While United has it set up for a number of different reward programs for those miles to post almost instantly after each individual redemption, I suspect that for a lot of other loyalty programs, it's a batch processing of redemptions that gets sent in to them at fixed intervals (every 7 days, every 10 days, last day of month, etc.) by Research Now, and sometimes you just happen to redeem closer to batch processing day than other times.

With the latest points posting, I've now got my IHG platinum for another year. Wish that IHG would announce plans for Spire to know if it would be worth it for me to try for that or if I should shift over to Accor since I've got some vague plans to use them on vacation next year, and there can be some good value with their Ibis/Mercure/Novotel options.