Davidl81

I am looking for a little help with the rhyme or reason for X or XN (saver) award availability on United flights. We have an extended family trip coming up with 10 total travelers. Flying in Aug and when I first checked UA's site there was XN availability on Aug 3rd and X on Aug 9th. That worked perfect since I have 180k American Express miles that I can move to Singapore Air (Star Alliance that charges 17,500 miles each way for IAH to HNL) then I could use UA miles (I have a little over 200k) for the XN miles (Saver for Elite/CC holders) for the Aug 3rd flight. I booked the hotels and then I had to transfer miles from AE to Singapore Air. The next day I went to book the United flight for Aug 3rd and the XN tickets were all gone (XN showed 9 the day before so I doubt they were all redeemed, but it could have happened) and now all they have are standard award tickets that are 45k miles each (opposed to 22.5k on XN). What makes matters worse is that I can't really pay cash for the one way direct flight from IAH to HNL. If I pay cash for the RT flight and not use any miles each leg is about $550 (total ticket $1100) but if I buy a one way on the IAH to HNL direct flight the cheapest option I have is $1200 each.

So really what I have to figure out is if UA randomly places X or XN availability for flights. Should I just check every day and see if these pop up? I have a decent amount of time till the trip so I am not in a huge rush. I have not booked the return flights yet even though they are cheap since I am not sure on the inbound flight. I have tried to make different days work but no luck yet with that option either.