Int'l Flights Luggage Question
 

We have a trip soon to Africa with several stops. Phx-Ord-Mad-Jnb and back. We are flying Iberia with Phx-Ord on AA codeshare.
We have an 18-hour stopover in Mad with IB
providing a 'daystay' hotel. Hence a packing/luggage question: will our luggage be checked all the way thru Phx to Jnb ie; out of our hands regardless of customs etc. on the stopover? (We don't want to cram clothes/cosmetics in carry-on for a stopover in Mad if we will be hand processing all our luggage thru customs anyways.) Any thoughts from international travelers? Thanx

Your biggter luggage will be checked all the way through, so just pack what you need in your carry-on.

Some cities now have a time limit on checking luggage through. I went through Heathrow recently with a 10 or 12 hour layover and could not check through as there was a 6 hour (or was it 4?) limit... Call your airline to check rather than relying on a public forum such as this.

NoFly, it would depend on the airline, not the airport. I know Southwest have a 4-hour policy.

and there in lies the problem....calls to both American airlines and Iberia, on seperate occasions with multiple reps yielded differing responses....hence my post on a public forum! Thanx

Ask to speak to a supervisor! :)

"..... Phx-Ord-Mad-Jnb and back. We are flying Iberia with Phx-Ord on AA codeshare. We have an 18-hour stopover in Mad with IB....."

Am I the only person who has to struggle to translate this into English before I can understand it? If I try to answer it should I be using this lingo

You're right - it is hard to fathom without one's magic decoder ring! A form of flying snobbery - knowing all the airport codes and airline abbreviations!! Here's what they are doing: flying from Phoenix to Johansburg, SAfrica with stops/layovers in Chicago and Madrid. Their domestic flights are on American and their int'l are on Iberia. I would wager the counter agent in Phoenix will be clueless so an email from a supervisor with American might go a very long way towards answering this. The 'daystay' hotels are usually (but not always in my experience) outside of customs/immigrations so if you have to pass the baggage carousel anyway, hang about to ensure luggage doesn't get dumped out and circle endlessly. Check your luggage tags when you check in and try to get priority labels put on them if at all possible. That's a bitch of a flight - get up often and drink lots and lots of water.

AA TA will do just fine. S/he will know exactly what to do and the luggage will be checked all the way through.
Recently I flew TPA-DFW-LAX(all AA)-HKG-JNB(CX) and the little country airport TA at TPA did a fine job. I also had a layover of about 18 hours in HKG. My luggage was one of the first ones on the belt in JNB. Flying in F helped I'm sure :-)!

Don't ask why this routing. :-D

The AA agent at PHX will correctly put the tags on your luggage all the way to JNB. The question is if the OP wants to have access to their luggage at MAD for those 18 hours. And I doubt any AA agent at PHX can give you the actual answer.

It's really a question to be put to Iberia, and if the OP wants their luggage at MAD, perhaps they can specifically ask to have them tagged to MAD only.

Thanx for the information, and yes a request to speak to a supervisor did wonders for getting more information. And golly gee i jest figured 'cause this here was a airline forum folks would have a lil clue 'bout that thar airline snobbery speak and whatnot...