Airport Madrid
 

My daughter will be traveling to Spain with final destination at Jerez. She will be flying into Madrid on American Airlines and then will be transferring to an Iberia flight. This is not a connecting flight, so she'll have to retrieve her luggage and then recheck in at Iberia for her next flight and re-enter security. At least this is what I'm assuming will happen.
Has anyone had experience with this. Any ideas on what she'll encounter, problems, etc?
Thanks!

Your daughter can check in her bag with AA to be transfered to IB for her flight to Jerez, she will have to show AA her IB ticket when she checks. She will have to clear customs in Madrid and transfer to the IB terminal, for her IB flight. Allow plenty of time between flights as the IB terminal is NOT near the terminal AA flies to.

I would allow plenty of time to transfer. It's not just security but immigration and customs lines. It can also take forever just to get between the terminals, including a slow moving train ride.

Assuming tickets have not been bought yet, correct?

opps, sorry the first sentence in my post should read.

Your daughter can check her bag with AA to be transfered to IB for her flight to Jerez, she will have to show AA her IB ticket when she checks in.

Thanks for the responses. We are purchasing the Iberia ticket tonight.

Although you insinuate she has two separate tickets, as mentioned by other posters, one would assume AA will check the bags through to jerez since they are IB partners.

In which case, she will NOT collect luggage, because one does not collect luggage in Europe as we do in the US when luggage is ticketed to final destination.

If she needs to collect luggage, (AA refuses to check all the way through).. after retreiving luggage,she will then have to stand in line to get her luggage checked into the Jerez flight at any desk shown on the monitors for her check-in process along with passengers arriving from street side.

If AA has checked her luggage to Jerez, but was unable to give her a BOARDING PASS for that flight, then she just goes to a connecting flights desk when she lands( Vuelos de conexión) where they will process the boarding pass without her having to go street side.

Hope this is clear. I think I have covered all the options.

Bouvier,

Don't know if you already bought your ticket. I assume you're doing it at the AA website? If you put Jerez as the final destination, doesn't the AA website gives you the choice of buying both tickets there as part of one ticket?
If not, Lincasanova has covered the options well.

Bouvier,

I don't know where your AA flight to Madrid originates, but I just attempted a reservation on the AA website from JFK to Jerez, and it gives me the option to buy the AA flight to Madrid , and then from Mad to Jerez on Iberia, all in one ticket. IMO, that would be the preferred way to do it if possible.

Thank you all. We are using Advantage points from STL to DFW to MAD. Then we bought the ticket to Jerez XRY separately. As long as we show the Iberia ticket to the AA desk at check-in in STL, they will tag her baggage to her final destination, Jerez, because Iberia is a sister company of AA. It will be considered a connecting flight.

She will need to go to a flight desk when she arrives in Madrid to get her boarding pass. I've found out from AA that their flight lands in the T4 terminal and the Iberia flight also takes off from either the T4 or the T4S (satellite) terminal. I looked at a map of the terminal and T4 and T4S are connected by train. She has six hours between her flights, so there should be plenty of time for baggage transfer, going through customs, getting her boarding pass, etc.

Hopefully everything will go as planned, but as parents we worry!!
Thanks again!

Thanks for all the details. Looks like everything will be just fine.

Very helpful information - I'm doing the exact same thing - DFW - Madrid AA and I booked Iberia separate from the AA.

Helps because I had 6 hrs to kill in Madrid as well - and I didnt want to lug my bags about.