Yes, I have resent a card very rarely, only ever to active members and always successfully.
The expired cards sent are not deleted off the account. They sitt and tally up total. They will be listed as expired; but taking up space and you can see them. Ittells you how many days of traveling and expiration.
I understand your frustration. People say they do not receive the card and they do. That is just not right on any level. I hope things get better for you.
I believe that after 365 days they are permanently deleted from the system.
I havenāt gotten to that point. I still have a few that are not registered. Thanks for that information.
How does sending official cards to a drawn address overwhelm the system?
Yes, I have success and/or good luck when I send a second card to a member who appears to be active, even sometimes when they do not seem active.
For me, in the past year, I have experienced many more cards expired, missing, lost, etc. I moved to a new city last year, and based on my experience, the mail here is inconsistent at best, for both sending and receiving. Since last year I have been keeping notes on which post office I use to mail my cards (including card IDs, date dropped off, and which post office). It was easy to track which USPS locations caused the missing cards, and now I avoid those locations. Unfortunately that means I have to go to a post office a little farther away, but it is worth it. I did not have to do this where I used to live, in my hometown city.
You are lucky! I have a card to Russia at 364 days expired. I believe tomorrow or Tuesday, it disappears forever.
This is what can happen if you want to surprise postcrossers with cards from rare countries. If their postal service isnāt efficient you may be blocked from sending any cards at all. For how long?
I always used to send cards when I travel but I might have to stop.
Iām sorry to hear that several of your postcards from rare countries have expired, and that youāre blocked from sending more.
Thereās still a chance that the expired postcards arrive and get registered. I donāt know how many of them will need to be registered before you are unblocked. The fastest way to get unblocked might be to send them another postcard.
What a shame I hope some of them arrive eventually!
Iām curious - is it okay to request a postcard in these countries, purchase it there and then wait to be somewhere with a better postal system to post? Personally, if it means that the card is more likely to get to me Iād be okay with that, and Iād love to see such a tiny ID!
I think as some have arrived, the rest will as likely arrive too.
It doesnāt help with the block now of course.
Do you have any other travelling cards?
Iām thinking would it help if you had/kept travelling cards sent from your own country too.
I would send a new one, and tell they hopefully will get the original as well, if I wanted to try to unblock myself. Otherwise just wait.
In case some member seem to have stopped this hobby, I would write to Postcrossing team, so maybe the block would go away that way.
I recently received a postcard with an accompanying letter of explanation about this.
The sender requested an address in Egypt, bought a postcard and stamp and wrote the message- then bought it home to Italy and posted it to me in an envelope. He was worried that Iād be upset that it wasnāt posted from Egypt too but not at all- I thought it was a great idea! If postage is expensive or mail unreliable then a cheap stamp and posting from home solves thatā¦.
If someone actually lives in the rare country however, this system may be a little problematic
This is exactly what I would be happy with! It is a bit problematic if you live full-time on one of those countries, but if itās someone in travel mode, Iād be more than happy with something like you experienced c:
Last year I took a trip to the Philippines. I had decided to send as many cards in travel mode as possible. So I pulled a lot of addresses, wrote the cards and by the time I got to the post office each time the Philippines had changed which countries they were accepting mail to. Several of the cards I had written I could not mail each time so I saved them, mailed them in envelopes when I got back here along with a note explanation. I didnāt get any complaints.
This is my fear. Iām fairly new to PC, just sent my first 5 postcards at the end of May, have mailed 18 but only received 3. That said, next month Iāll be going to a rare country, one that many countries donāt mail to (but that they have said they have no problems sending mail worldwide). By then I should have up to 7 slots open to send in Travel Mode, but if it takes a long time for the postcards to arrive Iāll be waiting a very long time before I can send again. I was thinking of doing the envelope technique (sending the stamped postcards from my home country) but even that worries me since I have such an imbalance at the moment (12 registered, only 3 received). Normally mail to and from Japan is really fast, so Iām surprised at how slow itās taking for people to get my postcards.
Still debating if Travel Mode is worth it, or just try to do swaps (or lotteries) instead, so it doesnāt affect my official sending abilities.
Oh thatās such a shame, Iām sorry. Normally I would suggest a second postcard sent from home, but I see youāre in Sweden and I know from experience postage is quite expensive there. Iām sorry. I hope it gets resolved.
You make good points. In this way, it seems travel mode to rare countries is a safer option for those people with more slots.
I recently saw another postcrosser from Russia experiencing this same issue in an online chat. I had no idea an expired card limit existed. I am afraid because 4 of my 91 sent cards have expired and 1 more will expire in a few days. I have reached out to these people and mailed second cards, but sadly still my communication goes unanswered. It feels like an unfair penalty for something that is usually outside of the senders control.
Iāve always viewed this limit as a safety feature in case people request a bunch of addresses and donāt actually mail anything or as an indicator of broken postal service. But I agree itās unfortunate and frustrating if you do everything right and the number of expired cards triggers the block anyway