I recently booked award travel with AA from Madrid back to the USA. I will be connecting/transferring from Seville on Iberia to make my international flight, with about 2.5 hours from arrival of the Iberia flight to the AA flight’s departure. The Iberia flight arrives at MAD Terminal 4 and the AA flight leaves from MAD terminal 4S.

I know the OneWorld through checked baggage policy with separate tickets changed in 2016, but because I’m just carrying on I’m not worried about that. What I want to avoid, however, is having to check in to the AA flight in MAD (hoping to do this online or at Iberia counter in SVQ, so I can just go straight to the AA gate in MAD). I would also like to know AA’s policy on transfers/connections ont separate tickets from OneWorld carriers to AA in case my Iberia flight is late. I read somewhere that AA will provide through checking protection if one ticket is an award flight and the other is paid, but I can’t find that info on AA’s site.

Thanks in advance for for your help. First time posting here, so please let me know if I should post those elsewhere. Cheers.