I sent 9 postcards from Cuba in travelling mode. and sent about 20 outside the site to my friends and family. None has arrived.
30 postcards sent in the end of January from different postoffices were not delivered to any country.
I checked and found the there was no delivered postcards from Cuba after Jan 20, 2022 and it seems to be a local issue. Unfortunately, I can’t send any postcard due to those expired. I sent 13 cards after that from my own country and all of them were registered.
At first I was advised by Postcrssing Support to wait until cards from my country are registered and then % of epired will decrease. After that didn’t happen I was advised to send duplicates. This looks a bit odd. In addition, letters do not reach most of the countries that fell for Cuba from my country. I was advised to send only to some countries, but where is the guarantee that this amount (2 postcards) is enough to unblock me the ability to send new postcards from my country.
I’m so upset.
I wanted to please people with a postcard from a rare country, but I got a headache. I will never use travelling mode, when I get this attitude.
Had someone the same situation with travellibg mode or 8-9 expired postcards?
(I tried to start separate topic, but it was deleted)
I have never used travel mode outside my own country, so I don’t have any own experience to share, but my mum and dad were in Cuba in January 2020 and sent 10 postcards from there to friends and relatives. None of them arrived.
I wouldn’t stop using travel mode, I would just consider using it in countries where postal system is more “secure” or send them from a post office and ask to get the cards hand cancelled so maybe they would be delivered more likely.
So sorry to read about your situation, hopefully you will get some free slots soon!
Not sure that Cuba is there. Anyway, I’ve sent postcards to 12 countries. 9 from postcrossing. I guess that if the mail can’t be delivered/sent somewhere, then that country will not drop out.
In 1999 a friend sent me two postcards from Cuba. One arrived after about three months, the second one 1 1/2 years later.
In 2005 she was in Cuba again, the postcards to here parents arrived after about a year, the other cards didn’t, until today. In 2019 her sister sent out about 30 cards (my friend gave up sending cards from Cuba). Not a single one arrived.
To be honest I was really surprised that Cuba has an ID with four digits what means that at least some cards reach their destination.
I’m really sorry for you, I keep my fingers crossed that you’ll have some slots open really soon.
joy follows frustration follows joy follows frustration … (repeat) …
after feeling happy with the expired card being registered, next cards are expired …
now I’m over 10 % expired again, which is in numbers “only” 8 + 1 travelling for more than a year.
Countries are: China (2), USA (1 + 1 over 365 days), Russia (1), Belarus (1), India (1), Indonesia (1).
A little bit sharing frustration makes it easier … looking forward to next nice surprise …
Greetings from Ukraine! Jan,9 and Feb,20 I sent postcards to Japan and China, so they are 117 and 76 days on their way and I don’t know is it okay or no. The same situation is with postcard to Taiwan. I’m so upset and don’t want to believe that they will just disappear or lost… Are China, Japan and Taiwan open for receiving postcards from Ukraine?
Thanks for answering! Please, stay safe and healthy!
Greetings, Oksana and welcome to Postcrossing!!!
If you want to check if any country will send postcards to Ukraine, check the Postal Monitor under the Explore category. There you can also look up what countries that Ukraine will send mail to.
For example, right now, the US cannot send postal mail to Russia, among 16 other countries. (corrected by author) Some of us have tried sending messages to our friends in those countries to wish our fellow Postcrossers the best. I offer the same to you - please stay safe!
76 days to China is completely normal - anything up to three months is!
The cards to Japan and Taiwan are a different matter. Cards from Poland usually take some 2-3 weeks to arrive there.
Any chance you didn’t send them by air-mail? If your postal services still make a difference between air-mail and none-air-mail, that could explain things. When during the pandemic for some time mail from Poland to Australia travelled by sea only, my postcards there took over 150 days!
And yeah… our postal services don’t see difference between airmail and none-airmail) To be honest, they never asked me about how do I want to send my letter they just told me a price and that’s it
Since I wrote this Post three weeks ago I have received seven (7) Hurray messages, most of them in the last few days. One card took 52 days to arrive. But it looks like I’m back in business. I’m now out of balance with 83 sent / 78 received so I hope to see some postcards arrive in the next few weeks.
My expired card count at the moment is 7, which is only slightly more than I would have before our recent postal issue due to lockdown, and about the same for most of the last 2 years.
I have 3 missing from China, all of which had Chinese script printed addresses but can probably be explained away by their continued lockdown which at times has been a lot stricter than most.
I have 1 missing from Russia, which is as usual, and in this case they haven’t received any cards since January (when they had sent 10 cards on the same day).
The oddest of my expired cards are 3 that are missing from the USA, and I have had quite a few missing over the last 12 months. One of the receivers hasn’t been on site for a month but the other 2 are regulars.
Not long ago I had a Chinese card registered after 54 days, where I used western writing for the address. I have one expired Russian one which, if it ever left the USA at all, went to a member with no activity since around the time I sent my card. Once I got the replacement member, I moved on.