I booked a fairly simple RTW (HND-HKG-LAX-LHR-NAP-ROM-LHR-HKG-HND) which I'm in the middle of. They usually work fine with no problems but this time I had flights on Monday from LAX to LHR, which arrived Tuesday morning. I set the next flight (LHR-NAP) to be Tuesday late afternoon as I was in no rush. At LAX with AA I was unable to check my bag through to LHR where I'd pick it up from AA and recheck it to BA (rumours of a strike at LHR had me deciding to make sure the transfer happened by doing it myself). I had to check my bag all the way from LAX-LHR-NAP "because of the way the ticket was issued" I was told by AA in LAX. I bought the ticket online as I usually do on the oneworld.com site so nothing really different there.

I wondered if anyone had experienced this issue before, that occasionally two flights on the itinerary get linked together by the computer so that I have to check the bag onto both flights and only see it after the second of the two flights. In this case it hasn't been a problem since I won't have to carry the bag myself from T3 to T5 at LHR - but if I had wanted things in the suitcase for my day in London, I couldn't access them.

Any idea how I avoid this happening to me on a future occasion (it may be as simple as "always schedule an overnight stop if you want access to your luggage" but perhaps there's something else I should be doing.
Many thanks.