Currently looking at flights to BON from ORD (Chicago O'Hare)...the trip down would be AA with a 2 hour layover in SJU (San Juan). Not bad.

Returning, however, is DCA from BON to CUR with a 6 hour layover. I'm looking at this as an "opportunity" to explore Curacao for a couple of hours, but also as sufficient buffer for DCA to get us to CUR in time for our AA flight back to MIA and then on to ORD.

Those of you with DCA experience, is this a relatively safe plan? I recall the Dutch acronym for ALM as being "altijd laat maatschapij" (always late service/airline).

And as for why this combination of flights, it's what Orbitz.com came up with as the cheapest combination for my desired dates.

When you fly through CUR connecting to an AA flight, you pickup your bags, leave the arrivals area out to the front and check back in everything with American at the regular ticket counter. FYI- They are going to search your bags again. I did this about a week ago with the family. It took about a half hour for us. You could easily catch a taxi or rent a cheap car for a trip into Punda/Otrabunda for lunch and shopping with the 3-4 free hours in the middle of waiting at the airport.