When flying to an airport that has WX lower than the available approach gets me, I like to enter the alternate airport in the flight plan so I do not have to fiddle with that additional task while trying to fly the missed.

The Garmin 430/530 series will default to the last airport in the flight plan when trying to select an approach though. I have found that I can select the intermediate airport approach and enter it in the flight plan a couple ways - either select approach before entering the alternate airport or hit menu twice to select airport for approach selection.

When I try to activate the approach though, I cannot get it to activate with the alternate airport in the flight plan as final destination.

Entering the alternate after the missed undoubtedly will be during a phase of flight with more workload than if it were entered during cruise.

My situation is I go into my home airport with MDA of 1700 AGL due to mountains in the traffic pattern. When missed which is not uncommon, the alternate is just 12 miles away with an ILS. So, I can put the localizer frequency in and be ready for the ILS but it does not take long to travel 12 miles.

Will the IFD 440/540 allow approach selection and activation when the airport of the approach is not the final airport in the flight plan?