What are the travel times?
Some parts of Germany are slower than normal nowadays.
You can also check if the member have been online.
If they have, and the travel time is much longer than normal, you can ask them if they got your card, maybe describe it, if they get lots of cards. Sometimes members forget.
Also, did you use enough postage?
Is the address written with a pen that doesn’t smudge easily? If glued, does it stay?
But, in general, I think it won’t be 1/3 not arriving in normal situation.
Yes, the services cuts during the previous Admin haven’t been restored & I gather parcels get priority now over letter mail. I’ve had 6 expired cards to the US in the last 6 months where before the invasion, only with Russia did I have that many expired.
Not surprised by Russia & US cards being expired/lost/not registered - both postal systems are under stress right now.
And I have had a couple of expired to Germany for the 1st time in my 2 1/2 years of Postcrossing - some cards to Germany take far longer than normal now & I suspect that may be due to workers being off sick.
Finland & Taiwan are usually pretty reliable, but cards do get lost.
All postal systems & airline travel have been under stress in the last year so I would expect there are more expired cards. Yes, it is frustrating, but don’t give up - hopefully you just got your share of expired cards early in your Postcrossing journey & it will get better.
One tip for US cards - make sure the bottom 1/2 inch of the card is empty - US postal regulations require this for their coding info. If that space is full, the card can get kicked into the hand sorting system which would delay it for sure.
Just for comparison - I’ve sent 531 cards & had 25 expired cards so far.
Hello. Could you explain what is wrong with the US Post? I didn’t quite understood what “duress” means.
By the way, there are also many delays between Russia and Belarus now. Two days ago a card was registered that took 215 days from me to Belarus.
I should have used the words under pressure/stress instead.
The US postal system had major cuts made under Trump that haven’t been restored & in the last 6 months, the postal system made a decision to priorize parcels over the delivery of letter mail. Plus workers being off sick with COVID & flu - mail is delayed.
I don’t think it is quite that bad yet, but those of us who care about postal services being well supported, public services need to fight for them to keep them that way.
Yes, privatization is always a threat - political leaders deliberately underfund a public service, declare it’s broken & then privatize so some donor can make millions/billions off of what used to be a public service. We have to fight this process.
I’m still angry that Biden hasn’t replaced DeJoy as head of the USPS - a man appointed by Trump to destroy the postal system. Biden’s appointees have had the votes on the Board of Governors since June but it still hasn’t happened yet.
You might want to get some other US Postcrossers together & start writing your Congress & Senate reps & the White House - start demanding better funding & services.
I think they have the data to see if it ever will be topical to think that.
My oldest expired now are to Russia and Germany.
Yes, expired to USA too, but this has always been the case.
I understand that it’s upsetting to lose such a high percentage.
Maybe because I also thought its too much, when I had about ten percent lost at a certain time. But in absolute numbers it’s not so much (4 cards lost, travelling more than 365 days - US, Indonesia, India, China. And 4 cards expired, US, China, 2 Russia).
Then after a phase when I lost a lot of cards, I had a time, in which lots of cards did arrive. That made the numbers in percentage decrease to only about 7 percent lost cards.
So my conclusion: Just spend as much on the hobby as I really want to, and see, if over the time the numbers in percentage decrease. If that’s the case - great. If not - maybe take a break, instead of quitting.
@Izzy2018 Yes, it needs to change. However, I do not agree with suspending the US from Postcrossing. This is one of my only hobbies and suggesting taking that away from people due to the USPS moving at a slower pace (during the holidays too when the mail system is usually its slowest) is a little too extreme.
I haven’t had any cards other than one expire from the US to the US in the last year. Though, I have had 4 postcards to Germany all sent on the same day expire. Postcards are getting to me between 15 and 25 days from Europe, 5-15 days from the US and Canada depending on where they are being sent from. Everything seems to be travelling at a reasonable speed for me, other than to Germany.
I have noticed @LC-Canada that since Biden has taken office, the travel time of postcards has increased. I don’t necessarily agree that putting blame on Trump is accurate- especially when he was in office I had almost no issues with any type of mail. Cards were getting to me from CT to CA in less than a week. Now I live in Colorado and cards take around 2 weeks to get to me and I’m closer than I was before. Trump also hasn’t been in office in 2 years- that has been plenty enough time for the current administration to make changes. It may also be in their agenda to let the USPS fizzle out as they haven’t pushed specifically for it not to be privatized. On the other hand- privatization isn’t always a bad thing. With the price of stamps going up again, at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if privatization would be the same price- if not cheaper eventually.
Sorry Caitlyn, privatization is ALWAYS a bad thing. In order to make a profit, the company has to cut services, wages etc so citizens & workers lose out.
And I agree that Biden’s Admin may not care much about preserving public postal services. There were significant cuts under Trump & his appointee DeJoy is still in charge, but public services generally, including postal services across most OCED countries have been deliberately underfunded for years by gov’ts.
I know it is out of our control with how long it take for postcards to arrive. But have you thought why. Have you ever thought the cards get lost in the mail (LOL, MDR) Have you thought your handwriting is the case why it takes so long. What the longest time has it taken for a postcard to arrive
Cuts to funding & services, workers off sick are the main reasons for cards being delayed, not your handwriting.
Most postal systems have very sophisticated optical scanners that can read billions of handwritten pieces of mail & if those don’t work, there are postal workers who try to figure them out.
