Thanks to everyone for their advice and thoughts.
However, your bags will not travel on the AA flight if you do not board. It just make take some time for you to be reunited with your bags if they are not short checked.
I assume if we do not get on the AA flight, our bags would be pulled from the aircraft and could we claim them at AA baggage service in LHR?
I am currently AA Plat. through a challenge, so I was going to call the Plat. desk and see what they could do for me. I'll be sure to request a stopover.
Lastly, we have done our research and AA is running Economy Mileage SAAVER for 20k per seat.
This trip is already an adventure and we're pretty easy going, hopefully it works out!