I would like to post a few postcards, but would like to know if any postal delays are taken into account due to the Christmas and New Year Bank Holidays that we have in the UK.
I know many countries world-wide do not take such extensive time off - but the UK literally comes to a standstill during this time.
taken into account in what sense?
There are no collections or deliveries for 4 days over Christmas and 4 days over the New Year so that means I lose 8 days travelling.
but if you send them before that time doesn’t it mean they will leave the country in a day or 2 after you send them ?
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Unless it’s absolutely necessary, I don’t mail anything between late November and late December.
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so you are asking about postcrossing itself? then no, it’s always total number of days between when address is requested and card is registered. Otherwise, are we going to not count weekends anymore?
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I doubt anyone will bat an eyelid.
Most Postcrossers are seasoned users of the postal services and expect delays this time of year.
For some it’s part of the fun!
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I think our mail doesn’t work on Monday 25th and Tuesday 26th, and also on weekends it’s not working, so it’ll be four days “not working”. But if I get it mailed on Friday, before the last collect, it will travel, I believe. Trucks and planes still operate.
I don’t think muchly things like this, because I am not aware of all holidays in other countries during the year, and also few days delays(extra travelling days) may come when they register for example once in a week.
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Postcrossing won’t take any account of the bank holidays when calculating the travel time. The travel time is simply the time from the moment you request the address until the moment the recipient registers the card.
It would be very tricky to calculate the exact time a card spent traveling in the postal system, not least because different countries have different working days, so you’d need to know exactly when a card left one country’s postal system and entered the next one to work out which days to ignore.
Even within a country there can be confusion. My nearest postbox still shows “Maw / Tue” on its next collection tab. Does that mean it hasn’t been cleared since Monday? They’re next clearing it on the 26th (highly unlikely)? Or did they just forget to change the tab? Discrepancies like that are impossible to calculate and take account of, so my recent cards will show as travelling for a few days even though they’re probably no more than a few metres from my front door.
Plus many people won’t immediately write a card as soon as they get an address. One big delay can be if people get a few addresses, then go to the shops to find cards, then write and send them. In that case a card could show as traveling for a few days before the sender has even bought it, written it, or posted it.
So I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Maybe it’s more accurately labelled as “total time between request and receipt”, but that’s not as snappy as “travel time” and it’s a good enough approximation.
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If this is a worry to you, just don’t request addresses at this time.
I have a couple of forum goodies to send, but TBH I’m now waiting until after Christmas, because they will require weighing at the post office, and the queues there are horrendous.
agree with you . I even had the problem when I requested addresses while I was visiting my European part of family and when I went to the post office they told me they have problem with the system for 3 days already so I had to wait until I come back to Germany to send them which for me wasn’t ideal since I like to send the postcard max the next day after requesting but some times things like this happen but in this case I send them maybe 2 weeks after I requested since I was busy also when I went back and didn’t had the time to buy stamps on the day I returned .
@PLYMOUTHPAMJ47
or if you want to send more postcards why don’t you write in the forum for a swap or giveaway or something like this ? In that way you can send postcards as well . Just as option 