Not directly addressing the OP, but: Does LH / NH (still) allow you to check your luggage only for part of the journey? I recently read about some trips EU-FRA-US (cheaper than FRA-US only) where people wanted to skip their last segment on the return and have their luggage delivered in FRA, but checkin said that they can only label them up to final destination. Hence, if you stop in FRA, you have to have to become a no-show on the next flight and get to do some extra work to get your luggage off that flight.