{"id":42245,"date":"2026-01-04T01:01:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T01:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/my-family-is-stranded-in-puerto-rico-because-our-flights-were-canceled-its-having-an-impact-on-our-finances\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T01:01:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T01:01:13","slug":"my-family-is-stranded-in-puerto-rico-because-our-flights-were-canceled-its-having-an-impact-on-our-finances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/my-family-is-stranded-in-puerto-rico-because-our-flights-were-canceled-its-having-an-impact-on-our-finances\/","title":{"rendered":"My family is stranded in Puerto Rico because our flights were canceled. It&#8217;s having an impact on our finances."},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/6959a6cf64858d02d217b482?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Passengers wait at Luis Munoz Marin International Airport as all flights are cancelled following US military action in Venezuela,\"\/><figcaption>A family of four is stranded in Puerto Rico after their Frontier flight back to Colorado was canceled due to Nicolas Maduro&#039;s capture by the US.<\/p>\n<p>MIGUEL J. RODRIGUEZ CARRILLO\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Nilgen Velazco is a 34-year-old who travelled to Puerto Rico from Colorado with her family. <\/li>\n<li>On Saturday morning, Nilgen received an email to say their flight later that day had been canceled.<\/li>\n<li>She was able to get another flight six days later, but said that this had a huge impact on her family.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Nilgen Velazco. It has been edited for length and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n<p> I woke up at 9 am on Saturday, January 3rd, thinking I&#039;d start rushing around to get our family ready for our return flight to Colorado. My husband, Malcolm, and our two children, ages 8 and 4, have been in Camuy, Puerto Rico, visiting my family since December 12th and were due to leave today at 4 p.m. from San Juan.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/6959aaa464858d02d217b4a9?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Couple posing for photo\"\/><figcaption>Nilgen Velazco and her family have to stay in Puerto Rico an additional six days because of flight cancellations.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Nilgen Velazco<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Groggy-eyed, I looked at my phone and saw I had an email from our airline \u2014 our flight had been canceled.<\/p>\n<p>My mother, with whom we are staying, turned on the news, and that&#039;s when we saw what had happened in Venezuela while we had still been sleeping.<\/p>\n<p>I genuinely thought it must all be a dream.<\/p>\n<h2>This was our first time visiting my family<\/h2>\n<p>When Malcolm and I started planning this Christmas trip to Puerto Rico to visit my family \u2014 the first time we&#039;ve ever done it \u2014 we&#039;d had issues finding and booking flights because of the government shutdown.<\/p>\n<p>Once we arrived, we had no idea that it would be an issue getting back home to Colorado. Things were stirring in Venezuela, an unfolding story I keep up with as my dad is Venezuelan, but we didn&#039;t think this would impact our trip in any way. It wasn&#039;t even on our radar.<\/p>\n<p>We were completely shocked by the news this morning.<\/p>\n<h2>I managed to rebook us on a plane 6 days from our original flight<\/h2>\n<p>I immediately got on the phone to try transferring our flights to another day. The person I was on the phone with kept telling us the seats were disappearing as she went to click on them, because everyone is in the same boat as us. We&#039;re all stuck here because all flights have been canceled out of Puerto Rico, desperate to book new flights.<\/p>\n<p>After an hour on the phone, we had managed to get tickets for Friday, six days from now. But we&#039;re unsure if that flight will get canceled, too. It&#039;s all very up in the air right now.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/6959a79104eda4732f2e6dce?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Passengers wait at Luis Munoz Marin International Airport as all flights are cancelled following US military action in Venezuela\"\/><figcaption>Nilgen Velazco and her family has a flight six days after their original flight.<\/p>\n<p>MIGUEL J. RODRIGUEZ CARRILLO\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>We&#039;re really lucky that we&#039;ve got family to stay with. I know there are so many people who can&#039;t find hotels to stay in.<\/p>\n<p>Even though we have accommodation, this delay in getting home is going to have a big impact on us.<\/p>\n<h2>The delay is affecting our finances<\/h2>\n<p>We had meticulously planned the finances for this trip, setting aside and saving exactly the amount we needed to make such a special trip. We aren&#039;t a wealthy family, so we had to scrimp to make this trip possible.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/6959a9e804eda4732f2e6de6?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Kids watching TV\"\/><figcaption>Nilgen Velazco took her kids and husband for the first time to Puerto Rico to visit family.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Nilgen Velazco<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>However, since we can&#039;t return home, we&#039;ll end up spending several hundred dollars more than we expected on our pet sitter and airport parking, which will definitely be a financial strain on our family.<\/p>\n<p>Our 8-year-old is missing some standardized testing and school, and our 4-year-old daughter is booked in for preschool, which is nonrefundable.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/6959aad004eda4732f2e6df8?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Couple selfie\"\/><figcaption>Nilgen Velazco and her family are stuck in Puerto Rico after their flights back to Colorado were canceled after Nicol\u00e1s Maduro was captured by the US.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Nilgen Velazco<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I will need to use my sick leave to cover the time I will be missing work, as I have already used my vacation leave for this trip and didn&#039;t bring my work laptop with me. Malcolm is the same.<\/p>\n<p>My mom borrowed a car from a friend for us to use while we were here, and we&#039;ve had to ask the friend to use the car a bit longer because you can&#039;t get around Puerto Rico without a car.<\/p>\n<h2>We are not the only ones in this situation<\/h2>\n<p>We know we aren&#039;t the only ones in this position. Today, we took the kids to the beach \u2014 trying to make the best of a bad situation \u2014 and met several families with kids going through exactly the same.<\/p>\n<p>It&#039;s one thing to be stuck when it&#039;s just you, but adding kids to the equation makes it that much more difficult.<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/6959aa5a832e0ef1ead71fd8?format=jpeg\" alt=\"Family at the beach\"\/><figcaption>Nilgen Velazco is trying to make the most about her canceled flight.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Nilgen Velazco<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>We&#039;re also nervous about what Venezuela might do in response to this attack, and if we&#039;ll still be here if and when something kicks off in Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n<p>We just wanted to spend some time with my family for Christmas, something we&#039;ve never done before, and then this happened. It&#039;s just really frustrating.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A family of four is stranded in Puerto Rico after their Frontier flight back to Colorado was canceled due to Nicolas Maduro&#039;s capture by the US. MIGUEL J. RODRIGUEZ CARRILLO\/Getty Images Nilgen Velazco is a 34-year-old who travelled to Puerto Rico from Colorado with her family. On Saturday morning, Nilgen received an email to say [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-42245","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}