Why the travel industry is in trouble (part 1)

While looking for a family vacation, I decided to try Expedia.com...
they offered some good deals on hotel and airfare at a fairly
reasonable price, I turned to my wife and said: Honey we are going to
Aruba!
It turns out that this was THE ONLY easy part of the entire
travel experience (Aruba itself was awesome but getting to and from
Aruba was HORRIBLE). Let me walk you through the experience, in the
same way I experienced it.
1) I booked travel on Expedia.com,
super simple, super easy... painless experience selecting the vacation
spot, reserving hotel and airfare. There is a catch however, my
itinerary stated that I was staying at the Marriott (was true) and was
flying via US Airways (was completely UNTRUE).

2) With itinerary in hand, I brought my family to SFO with 2.5 hours of leeway (just doing my part to ensure a smooth travel
experience), walked up to the US Airways counter and presented my
passport and itinerary. I was told: 'oh this is not with us, it is with
United Airlines you need to go check in with them in that terminal', I
then politely showed my paperwork that showed US Airways as the
carrier... to which I got a laugh and the US Airways employee told me
this is a "code-share" and I would need to get to the "United" counter
to check in. So I grabbed my stuff and took my family on a 15 minute
walk through the airport between terminals to get to the "United"
check-in facility.
I think if you bought a ticket from an Airlines, you should likely check in there codeshare or not.. making the customer experience easier, in addition I would say that Expedia could have highlighted it if indeed it was a United flight instead of a US Airways flight.

3)
Checked in at the United counter and all seemed to appear to go
smoothly, so went through the security gates and off to our boarding
gate. (This is where smooth stopped).
About 30 mintues before the flight was scheduled to board, we were notified via
loudspeaker that our flight would be delayed due to "mechanical
issues", so I approached the counter and asked how long the delay was,
explaining that we are connecting in Denver on our way to vacation in
Aruba.
The counter attendant, looked at me blankly and said.. 'oh, you won't make that connection',
so after 30 seconds of silence, I asked what I should do... she asked
me for my boarding passes and said she would see if there were any
alternatives.She pulled up the flight information for us and announced loudly 'you are on a US Air flight, I cannot do anything for you' (as if I was hard of hearing perhaps?). I politely said that all of my
boarding passes say UNITED AIRLINES, not one of the boarding passes
said "US AIR". She abruptly laughed out loud and said 'look...
we are UNITED you bought a US Air ticket, we will get you to Denver on
the flight you were on, you should call US Airways and see what they
will do for you' and then turned her back on me to send me away.

4) I called Expedia to advise them of the issue and after about 30 minutes of explaining and waiting, I was told that 'We (Expedia)
booked your travel, now it is up to the airlines to make it right',
'nothing more we can do, call US Air and see if they can help'

See part II for the rest of the nightmare...