Thanks for the responses and clarification. When I booked this MUC-LAX was available and frankly United has been abysmal at showing phantom availability for TATL flights in LH and LX recently, so this one seemed like a unicorn. It was available one night, then went away and when I saw it yesterday, jumped on it but also figured I might as well get a free flight from somewhere else in Europe (ARN-MUC) at no extra cost. Turns out the wife would rather go to another European destination. Perhaps I’ll just cancel and hope the MUC-LAX shows up again for me to book with a different flight feeding me into MUC.

This is also against the background that I recently switched to Alaska Air and their award booking is so refreshingly flexible. Their international awards are essentially segment by segment and priced for the overall journey. I’ve booked LAX-HEL-LHR and after ticketing I can go back in and change the HEL-LHR to HEL-CDG with a three day stopover in HEL and it’ll still price out the same as the original itinerary, because Alaska is able to hold the LAX-HEL. The biggest problem is their system doesn’t support lap infants.