I have an upcoming AA Award on QR. PHX-IAH on AA, then IAH-DOH-JNB on QR.

I'm a bit concerned about baggage transfer at IAH. It's an outstation for AA and probably rarely sees AA>QR baggage. My layover is a bit over 4 hours.

Considering asking at PHX if I can short check bags to IAH and handle the bag transfer on my own, but unsure if they will allow that. Anyone have experiences or ideas on how to best handle this? Apologies if this isn't the best forum for this question but its fairly unique situation since QR doesn't have a codeshare on this route through IAH which would make luggage transfer more common.