Thanks for the great advice! I read the vielfliegertreff posts and also have confirmed with the BuPo in Frankfurt. It really seems that my application is stuck at this point because of this .... Fortunately, I have two stop-overs in FRA and MUC in the next weeks (before the expiry date of my GE) - one of which I am confident will be long enough to stop by the BuPo office.