For this trip, I have again used a combination of award and paid tickets, the latter being for the long-haul flights to and from Bangkok, my “gateway city”. As I was traveling during Swiss school holidays, flights out of Zurich to Thailand priced out at about €1100 round-trip, both on LX and TG. There was however a special fare available on LX out of any German airport to BKK for €600 via Zurich, so I booked that out of Munich and a separate ticket ZRH-MUC-ZRH for another €150. All this was in Economy of course, but looking at the load factors on my dates of travel and considering my status with LX, I was hoping to score an upgrade to Business and decided against spending the extra €1000 for a paid Business ticket. Read on and see. 
Bottom line of this detour was a saving of €350, 4000 extra status miles and a pleasant Saturday in Munich, as I had scheduled my flights to arrive MUC early in the morning and depart around 8pm with a direct connection on the ZRH-BKK flight.
Upon arrival in MUC (I won’t bore you with details about the unremarkable short-haul segments in LX Economy), I claimed my large suitcase holding everything necessary for two weeks on the road and immediately checked it in again. After some initial confusion, the check-in agent managed to check my bag for MUC-ZRH-BKK-HKG, where I would be claiming it roughly 36 hours later.
I then went downtown, met up with some friends and had a good time shopping and hanging out in a beer garden before returning to Franz Josef Strauss airport with two Starbucks mugs for mjm and a big Pretzel as an underway snack. After all, you know how bad the food is abroad so you better take along what you like. Imagine you’d be forced to try something new! 
Much to my relief, the flight back to Zurich was on time and did not jeopardize my connection to BKK. Transferring through my home airport felt a bit weird I must admit, but a got used to it about a month later during the countless “mileage runs” for the famous LX 10’000 mile promotion.