Maybe it was Pandemic-related. Lord only knows where our postcards end up sitting. They were probably so back up that it took this long to finally get all of the mail going again.
I’ve only gotten started last November (2023) but a card to China is currently at 156 days. I hope that it someday reaches its destination. My first expired card.
My first expired card has spent 94 days traveling to China so far. Fingers crossed it eventually makes it! (The recipient also hasn’t logged on in 24 days, so not routinely active as well)
Longest card coming to me so far on the official side took 65 days from Belarus. It arrived looking a bit rugged, so it had an adventure!
I have cards owed to me from forum tags that are approaching three months since the sender requested my address.
None of my experiences so far seem too extreme! I’m still quite new, though
Are they registering other (American) cards, but not yours?
It varies so much in China. Probably depends on where they live. Others have been recieved. But…who knows what happens over there. I put both English(?) address and Chinese character address on one of them.
Yesterday i received a postcard from South Africa after a 15 month’s journey So happy it finally aŕrived in my mailbox
So yes, ‘miracles’ in ’ postcardworld’ do happen
!
Received my first ever card from Jordan thank you so much dear @Superchick3
for fantastic card!!!
Postmark says, it was sent on 20 July, 2023!!! Wow! Almost a year to receive a first card from Jordan , i guess it’s worth it
This is the longest travel time for me, almost a year!!
Wow it was actually sent January 2023
I received today this postcard mailed from Samarkand, Uzbekistan on late January 2024. But I noticed in the postmark that it was processed by Uzbekistan Post in Samarkand on late March. My friend who mailed it to me returned to her country in late January. I still have not received 2 postcards mailed around the same time from Bukhara and Khiva.
Wow, got Postmark of jul, 2023:)
travelling for a long time because the users are inactive for 1 and 2 months
When the postcards can be registered automatically or what happens when it is happening here?
Postcard AT-716755 (postcrossing.com)
But I am glad it arrived.
I think Postcrossers should be able to register cards, no matter for how long they have been travelling, not only until 365 days have gone by, after which the cards disappear. Or does this pose a technical problem?
Do you ever get the feeling that a whole bunch of postcards just dissappear/won’t arrive? I have all my slots full of traveling postcards and wait everyday for them to arrive to write new cards (I prefer writing cards over getting cards a bit).
Sometimes I think I should just try to but them in a diffrent postbox or bring them to the post office directly. I already have more cards received than swnt and it bothers me. (tbh has to do with occasional depression phases which I had abt 3 years ago, where I requested adresses but just couldn’t find the energy and motivation to do anything. I’m still so sorry for that.)
But it’s so frustrating to see the cards travelling for so long. One card to China will expire tomorrow.
One card maybe reached its destination but the person wasn’t online for three months…
Now I’ve been doing this a while (over 570 cards sent] I’m finding very few get lost. 5 undelivered out of 575 is amazing . Sadly the postcrossers sometimes get lost.
Persevere is my recommendation
Yes, it does. Every database has limited space and if you didn’t make the cut somewhere, the undelivered postcards would be taking more and more space as they accumulate. If I remember correctly, it would also make it more difficult for the algorithm that gives out addresses.
Postcards are registered automatically when a user closes their account or when they move and choose the option that all postcards travelling to them are auto-registered. Sometimes postcards just take long or are lost. There is nothing you can do but wait. If the postcards travels for more than 365 days, it will be removed from the system. This is what @Robin67 asked about.
Thanks for the information @hankadl!
I am a real computer idiot. What I know is just about enough for my work and the official Postcrossing.
That’s why I can never work from home and will never get to grips with this forum. Sadly.
So it is a while since your post. What did you do finally? Did you send cards to those existing addresses?
Some delays from smaller jurisdictions I think are attributable to frequency of connections.
I mailed 16 cards from AG and 44 from KN end-April.
Most of the AG ones arrived within 30 days. That island has very regular flights to GB and US.
At time of writing, only half the KN ones have reached their destination. Some arrived quickly within 7-10 days, while others have only recently started to get registered. That island has fewer regular flights to US and GB.
For smaller jurisdictions also, mail freight costs might be an issue, so mail is bunched up and sent as and when space can be bought or secured.
Also ineptitude of the post offices cannot be left out. I will give 5 samples of many that I have suffered:
-
I sent a registered envelope to Dominican Republic once. It arrived in 24 hours from my country to there because there is direct flight connection. Envelope traveled from airport to main post office in the capital of RD the nex day. Then traveled to the post office branch of the neighbourhood of the destinatary the next day. Then it stayed a whole month on that post office without being delivered nor notified to the destinatary. The person had to go to that post office to get the envelope.
-
I was sent an envelope of an online buy from Japan. Took 3 months to arrive to me because it was Missent to Bermuda by mistake. Arrived with handstamp “Missent to Bermuda”.
-
A registered envelope was mailed from Ukraine to me and took 4 months to arrive because USPS missent it by mistake to Mexico first.
-
An registered envelope mailed to me from Kherson, Ukraine stayed 1 month in Kherson main post office without being processed. Once I made a claim they sent it the next day of my claim to Kyiv to get on the usual postal route.
-
A postcard was mailed to me in late January from Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The post office at Samarkand took 2 months to process the postcard, according to the postmark. Then it arrived this week to me. It took 6 months to arrive.
In this year of Olympics and records being set, is there a record for the longest time a card has taken to arrive at its intended destination in Postcrossing?
Mine was 211 days from the UK to Germany.