I just haven't flown enough to know the answer to this one.

Here's the scenario: I want to book a ticket MCI-IAH-MIA-PTY-LIM and back (it's cheaper than MCI-IAH/EWR-LIM). The MCI-MIA part is on Continental and the MIA-LIM part is on Copa (all status miles and all freely upgradeable and cheaper to boot!). Now, the connection in MIA would be approximately 90 minutes flyig down which is plenty of time unless something goes wrong.

The question is, if something does go wrong on either the MCI-IAH or IAH-MIA segments creating a delay, is CO responsible for getting me to PTY or LIM or are they only responsible for getting me to MIA, despite the fact that I would miss the Copa flights that day? I just want to get an idea of what risk I am taking by making a 4 segment trip into an 8 segment trip on multiple airlines. This would all be booked on a single ticket.

Any insight is appreciated. Does it make sense to add the LIM-CUZ segments onto the same ticket even though this would add a 3rd airline? Hmmm, I'm starting to think that I might actually want to use a travel agent for this one.