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'
5) I then called US Airways and after 15 minutes of being on hold, I finally reached "Martin" who really tried hard to get to the bottom of the issue and make it right. But before he was able to do so, enough time had elapsed that we needed to board the flight. So Martin advised me to get on the flight to Denver and he would work with United to get us to Aruba as soon as possible.
6) Arrived at the United gate in Denver at ~1am, I was greeted by a United representative who informed me that they made arrangements to get me on an American Airlines flight at 6am and as the airport was closed, they made arrangements to put us up in a Hotel for about 4 hours of sleep before our AA flight to Miami. They said that a shuttle was waiting right outside to take us to the hotel immediately.
7) We waited about an hour for that shuttle to arrive to finally get us to the hotel, for what was now about 3 hours of sleep before the next flight.
8) Finally on the flight to Miami, AA is smooth so far... land in Miami, a long layover ~4 hours but we made the connection and boarded a plane for Aruba.
9) We land in Aruba, nice landing... crew was pleasant. We go to our baggage claim and to our surprise... bags are missing! (what a surprise). The AA attendant there said, 'don't worry, this happens often from Miami and Philadelphia', then proceeded to fill out some forms to track our bags, saying 'they will probably show up tomorrow, if so, we will drive them to your hotel, if not we will call you to give you some status'. I asked if they had any 'travel kits' as we had been traveling for a long time and needed something to brush our teeth (at least) as all clothes were checked in baggage. He stated: 'oh, we ran out of those... you should ask at the hotel and see if they have any, if not just go buy some to last you one more day'
10) Aruba was an amazing place, great people... Marriott nice. Spend some good times there with family, but finally had to come back home. Via Expedia, we booked shuttles to and from the airport.. the shuttle on the way to airport was great... however, the shuttle never showed on our return to the airport, leaving us to hire a cab and spend another 30 dollars to get back home!
So not only did we lose a day in Aruba due to all the flight challenges, we also went without food or sleep on the travel there... our bags were lost... and services that we paid for were not delivered... and people ask why the travel industry is not profitable and people are taking smaller vacations now and avoiding the airlines...
IT IS ALL ABOUT SERVICE... or the lack thereof.
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