Are your postcards taking longer to arrive to their destination?

Postcrossing General Topics
#1

Hello!

Just a general question but especially addressed to Spanish postcrossers: Are your postcards taking too long to arrive lately?

Here in Spain, apart from not being able to send postcards to some countries (Australia, Bermuda, for example) I am having most of my postcards expiring… which is strange, even more so when some of them are in Europe. They used to take about 2-5 days, but not 70… I am wondering if it is a common problem or just me :slight_smile:

Thank you in advance for your time reading and your attention!

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Has anyone experienced major delays from/to the USA?
#2

I am from Austria and have the same problem. Especially cards to Russia expire very often. At the moment I have 12 expired cards to Russia (4 of them within the last 3 days).

But also all other cards have become more slowly than usually. Cards to Germany normally arrive after 4 or 5 days, now most of them take about 10 days or more.

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#3

it is a huge problem for me as well. within EU usually takes max 10-15 days… now 12/15 cards have hit over a month on the road… :pensive:

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#4

At the moment everything seems to be alright again, except that we can’t sent mail to some smaller islands. Around March everything was pretty bad, but even now with the postal services being more busy because of Christmas everything seems to be okay. I’ve even had cards sent to Russia and China arrive quite quickly, compared to the standard sending time I’ve always been used to.

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#5

Yes. Very very slow. I am having cards expire travelling to Belgium and Germany, places that never expire. Even cards traveling within the US are taking a long time.

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#6

I do see significant delays with the USA - used to be one week, now it’s more like two weeks, precisely 12 (3 times) and 13 days in December.

Europe seems to be fine (didn’t have any cards to Spain, so can’t speak to that). All numbers from December. Netherlands 2 days (no weekend), all these with 1 weekend: Switzerland and Slovakia 3 days, Belgium 4 days, Ireland 5 days, Italy 6 days, France and Poland 7 days.

Oddly enough I’m currently seeing a great reduction in time to Russia (11, 14 and 13 days) and mainland China (15 days), both countries used to need 1-2 months and often expired before arriving.

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#7

Yes. I have a card sent from my state to the other side of my state (less than 200 miles) and it’s still traveling after 10 days. I’m trying to keep in mind all the factors slowing the mail down right now, and hoping the receiver isn’t sick with COVID.

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#8

I just received a card from Austria traveling 34 days…very long…also cards within the US are unusually long…

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#9

Yes. It’s been like this since the beginning of the pandemic and is not surprising. I just got two cards registered in Europe at 12 days and it feels like a miracle!
Over the last months, I’ve had mail taking anything from 6 weeks to 5 months to get anywhere.
USA is now as bad as Russia, not everything gets there and most of what gets there takes at least a month (with exceptions).
It’s fascinating…

If you are looking for answers specifically from the Spanish crowd, perhaps you can ask the question in the Spanish-speaking section of the forum?

Which just reminded me! I got a card from Spain at something like 113 days… And also stuff from my postcardpal in Spain takes about a month to reach me.

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#10

I hope postcrossing will get everyone’s expired cards straightened out. Things that usually took 4 days within the USA now take 2 weeks. I can’t wait until January and hopefully the mail speeds up.

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#11

Aside from the pandemic, things often slow down a bit during the Christmas rush. The post offices are probably handling a lot more than usual, even at Christmas, as more people are ordering gifts online so they don’t have to shop in person.

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#12

I’m kind of depressed to see another Netherlands user say everything is fine. I recently rejoined after several years hiatus and I’m on a 5 card max and I feel like everything must have gone missing… I even had a card within the Netherlands (not via postcrossing) take over two weeks. Good for everyone else though of its just me not having a lot of luck!

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#13

What can they do? They are not responsible for the mail services :wink: But I am not sure I understand what you mean.
I can see you joined two weeks ago so you still won’t have any expired…
At least you got some registered, I can see they were domestically within the USA, but still at least you got some movement! (my first ever card took over a month :sweat_smile:)

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#14

I recently received a card from Spain - it was posted on November 12th and arrived in my mailbox in December. This is definitely not normal and right now, with greater amount of Christmas mail, the cards will be even slower.

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#15

nah it’s definitely not just you. my cards within the netherlands don’t take 2 weeks but it’s not the next day either. that has also to do with december stamps, cards with normal stamps get priority. did you check if the user still comes online? where are your other cards going? china and russia can take very long, even when there is no covid and christmas.

i don’t have any shocking numbers. i think i’m mostly just lucky a lot of my cards go to germany. normally that takes about 3 days and now the slowest is 10 days so that’s still not very long. even my latest cards to russia were registered within two weeks. (but then again i also have 2 expired and one traveling for over a month)
my cards to the usa always arrive within 2 weeks. which is strange as i’m reading here that mail within the usa also takes 2 weeks?

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#16

People are logging in and don’t seem to be the people who don’t register. I do have one to Russia taking forever but I also have Netherlands and Germany at 15 days. I almost sent them again even though I know that’s not necessary…

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#17

Yes, they are taking longer. After four weeks of nothing arriving, finally had three in two days (this week) arrive at their destinations!

I was giving up hope! I thought they had all been lost or never picked up from the mailbox I dropped them in.

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#18

Thanks everybody for your kind and detailed replies! :smiley:

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#19

Yesterday I got two cards and an envelope from different users from Spain that were all sent in the last week of September. So, slowly but surely :sweat_smile:

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#20

Well, if there still are daily flights carrying mail from the Netherlands to the USA (which may not be the case due to the pandemic), Dutch Post would put your card on such a plane the next day, and it arrives in the USA the same day, then needing the rest of the 2 weeks inside the USA.

About 10 years ago German Post changed their policy regarding mail going abroad, completely cancelling surface (ship-bound) mail and sending everything by air mail. So for all countries where there are direct mail-carrying flights, my postcards should arrive in that country’s airport within 2 or 3 (to take into account long flights to e.g. Australia) days. So the remaining time supposedly is used by the receiving country’s customs and postal system. Countries with limited airfreight, e.g. small island nations, may take a long time to receive my cards because there are few flights at all going there.

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