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I know it's really nice. It allows me to give anyone in range a rerolled saving throw, instantaneous and immediate, but....
I feel queasy about it. As Player, I know he needs a reroll but how can my character know?? Isn't this gaming the game - metagaming and not rollplaying??
[A few more questions like this and I can change my tag to 'The Church lady' :) ]
I'd imagine that if your character can recognise a failed save then you would have no issue with it being metagamey.
It is justifiable, I think.
You notice an ally neither braces nor ducks as a fireball approaches, so you cast this spell to help (reroll a failed reflex save vs fireball).
A destructive ray of force impacts your ally and they start to cough, so you cast this spell to help (reroll a failed fortitude save vs disintegrate).
An enemy spellcaster waves their hand and your ally cracks a smile, so you cast this spell to help (reroll a failed will save vs hideous laughter).
Your character needn't know exactly what it wrong, merely that an ally is in trouble and this spells helps.
EDIT: this is also probably in the wrong subforum. Your question doesn't really pertain to the rules.
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I think you're over-thinking it. You could use the same logic to say a wizard should just nova their first encounter and empty his spells. How does he know there are any more monsters? How does he know they are going to get stronger?
Chalk it up to Bardic intuition, if you're looking for some kind of in-game reason. There may be instances when an encounter is very hard and using those abilities are warranted beyond the BBG, but it's not metagaming to manage your resources.
You have spell craft right? Make those knowledge checks if it makes you feel better.
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But by the time anything would be apparent, the moment for the save has passed.
Flavor wise, there's no reason why a spell that is affecting someone can't be considered to take a second or two to 'fully take effect,' giving your bard a chance to stop the target from disintegrating or whatever.
If you've seen the movie Willow, someone attempts to petrify a spellcaster, and her hand turns to stone first, with the effect creeping up her arm, giving her a few seconds to resist / counterspell the effect.
Operating on this sort of cinematic premise, where magical effects don't necessarily happen in the blink of an eye, perhaps the spell effect (be it a charm or an evocation or a transmutation) similarly takes a few seconds to 'take hold,' giving the bard enough time (as an immediate action) to recognize that something bad (TM) is happening, and attempt to foil it before their ally fully succumbs to the effect.
The fantasy universe often operates under 'cinematic' rules anyway. Fireballs and bolts of lightning, like explosions in action movies, can be at least partially 'dodged,' no matter how ridiculous that is. PCs seem to have built in 'bullet time,' allowing them to react to circumstances (like lightning!) that they 'realistically' shouldn't be aware of until after they've already been blown out of their boots by them.
Fortunately, adventures react really fast, and magical lightning is a bit easier to anticipate than the real-world stuff, with some sort of crackling ozone discharge at the impact site just a split-second before the actual bolt arrives...
TL;DR - if the flavor and the mechanics seem at odds, it's easier to tinker with the flavor, to suit the mechanics, than vice-versa.
If it doesn't 'feel right' or 'make sense' or it seems 'unrealistic,' beat on it until it fits. :)
The casting time of this spell is "Instant". Things don't get much faster than instant. The spell, attack, poison, whatever, hits your ally and you instantly recognize he succumbed to the full effect and can instantly give him another chance.
Instantly.
It's just how the spell works. If you couldn't metagame with it, it'd hardly even be useful at all. Since many of the nastiest things to fail a save against aren't immediately visually apparent.
Bard just has the dramatic sense to know when an ally should get a 2nd chance to resist something. It builds tension, or something.
I always just considered Bard's and rogues were lucky to explain some of what they do.