Gamertag not available after logging out?

Thank you, we used it with the numbers to our dismay because we had no other choice, I will try to change it tomorrow and see if it allows it to be used without the numbers added to the end.

Give it a little bit of time and then try again. If you were using the changing system to see if it's available, it'll reserve the tag for a short time thinking you were about to use it. Since it got disrupted, the system may still be holding onto it for a short time.

Afraid not.

Gamertags are not made available on demand.

As of last year,if a gamertag does not log in for 5 years then it is made available although i'm not sure whether that applies to banned gamertags.

The gamertag text field can immediately check if a gamertag is available, or you can select a randomly generated gamertag if you want to get to playing right away.

Please note that if a gamertag is not available, it is not available. Xbox Support cannot release gamertags from allegedly inactive users by request. Gamertags are only released if the owner has not logged into their Microsoft account for five straight years,
and some people do keep their account active by logging into other services (Office, Outlook, etc).

This is strange. Today I bought Batman Arkham City for PC and was asked to log in to LIVE. I did that and I noticed that you could change the Gamertag from there as well. So I entered the excact same name that was first availible, then taken, yesterday.

And today it worked for some reason. Does anyone know why this happened?