It is a AA OW award (although I'm not sure why it would make a difference).

My thought is when does a connection turn into a stopover. For example if I was flying immediately onto LIS from MAD my luggage would be checked all the way through. Works for a 3 hour connection, a 6 hour connection....until how many hours.

Again, I'm more than likely to just check my big bag at the airport, I was just curious if anyone managed to convince a airline that a 72 hour period was really a "just a connection". Seems unlikely, then again so do lots of things involving travel.

Thanks