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Of course it is acceptable grammar. The rules of English grammar are the very reason why such "strange things" happen in the first place. Now, whether or not you actually end up using a double "that" or rewording it, is a different question. But it is a question of style. Read: personal preference.
I used the book Understanding and Using English Grammar by Betty Schrampfer Azar when teaching English throughout the 1990s, mostly for its clear and simplified verb tense diagrams which explain when to use the present progressive, past perfect, present tense, etc.
Now, it might be acceptable to use a plural in some edge cases. In A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (1985 Quirk et al.), page 756: Similarly, interrogative who and what as subjects normally take a singular verb even when the speaker has reason to believe that more than one person or entity is involved.
@Rory Alsop: ‘The Cambridge Guide to English Usage’ confirms that when ‘I’ is used in coordination with a noun or another pronoun, ‘politeness dictates that it comes second’. Politeness, not grammar. The article continues ‘These conventions apply in standard written texts, although they may be relaxed in conversation.
For example, the “...and I” virus exhibits lexical specificity, in that it affects the first-person singular pronoun more often than other pronouns, and overextension, in that it commonly affects a first-person pronoun that is part of the object of a verb or preposition (e.g. “between you and I”), which should not be able to receive ...
The webpage discusses the rule of order for time, date, place, building, etc., in grammar.
The core meanings may differ subtly, but idiomatically people use both forms quite often and with considerable overlap in meaning. I think it's a mistake to suppose that English in general gravitates toward one correct form of a verb + preposition combination and deems all others incorrect.
Grammars, especially school grammars , treat this grammar point on a low school level. In reality the idiomatic use of this and that is a complicated thing and a study of this problem would be a whole chapter. There are cases where native speakers prefer one of the two demonstratives, and there are cases where either of the two is possible.
So don't worry so much about how to use "had had" as a unit of grammar, they will come together naturally when you want to express the verb 'to have' in the past perfect. Let's consider a different verb for a moment like "to want". Suppose that at sometime in the past I wanted to do something, but I don't want to do it at present.