Hi all,
Long story short... Due to award ticketing limitations my family and I ended up with a 7 hour layover on the return of an international itinerary. It goes like this:

MUC-IAD
IAD-DTW

We will have checked bags, and I do see an earlier flight (leaving just 2 hours after the MUC flight arrival). How do I best position us to be able to standby on that earlier flight? I had a couple thoughts, but would love to hear the experts weigh in on this one....

1. When we clear customs and immigration, grab the bags, head out of security and plead with the ticketing counter folks.

2. When we clear customs and immigration, put the bags back on "the belt" and let them continue on their way. Then proceed to the gate and plead to standby and hope they can get the bags on our flight.

3. When we clear customs and immigration, grab the bags, try and make it through regular security and attempt a gate check. (This doesn't seem very doable to me, we'll have a sizable amount of checked baggage)

Thoughts on this?