Some 2022 thoughts about postcard travelling times. In this graph, Travelling is the same term as Postcrossing uses, I have also used Expired to refer to those travelling more than 60 days and less than 365 days. I really didn’t like Jan and Feb 2022!
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Happy New Year everyone!
May Peace come to Ukraine and may we all have a joyful 2023.
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Happy 2023 everyone!
I wish the post office was open today would happily spend all of today Postcrossing
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Just had another card to the UK registered in only 10 days. Why can’t they all be that fast? That’s faster than two of the three cards I’ve sent just within Oz. 
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10 days is amazingly fast for Australia Post
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I’m amazed! I mean…I posted a card to my brother in Sydney on Tuesday…that hasn’t even arrived yet. So there’s three days already…just travelling up the highway to Sydney!!! How did it get all the way to outside London in only 10 days? It’s a miracle .
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I haven’t drawn an address in China since last April, so I was pleasantly surprised to see two Chinese addresses appear in the four addresses I drew this morning.
I’ve had a little look through some Aussie stats and it seems like, at least for those cards that make it through, the travel times have mostly returned to more of a standard timeframe.
Is this your general experience too?
well if you count those at 366 days that drop off the system i’ve just had 2 more go that way in recent days…
the only card that has been registered as arriving in china this year - yes just one- was sent in may2022 - it took 300 days!
a card sent oct22 arrived in nov22 - 47 days quite fast then considering the last one was 300 days 
then 2 sent early and late jan 2022 both arrived october 2022 within a day of each other
these are the current travellers to china…
23/Apr/2023 7 days
21/Apr/2023 9 days x 2
26/Mar/2023 35 days
20/Feb/2023 (expired) 69 days
4/Dec/2022 (expired) 147 days
3/Jun/2022 (expired) 331 days
i’ve received 10 cards from china this year - mostly sent november, december
to be fair, my account has been inactive since december so sometime this year i’ll get the next batch haha
the other thing i’ve noted in recent months …
i went for the repeated countries option for 6 months or more
usa and germany of course dominate
i have a few cards to draw today, or will i wait til tomorrow?
anyhow @ 28 april i have 65 cards travelling to usa - 24 of those are expired
germany has 50 travelling and 11 expired
oh and taiwan is unreliable 4 cards travelling 3 are expired,
including one i sent on 1 october world postcard day - i drew her name twice that day (2 accounts) sent in one ‘envelope’ and she claims she only received one so won’t register the other card - of course i now have 2nd one travelling to her - i say ‘envelope’ because one of the cards was too big for any envelope i had on hand, so i made my own envelope and added several stamps, including used ones for her collection - and i went to a lot of trouble to clearly identify her cards are to 2 different accounts - she may be off my christmas card list now
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I drew my first card to China since 2021 last month and it got there in 41 days 
I did also print off the address for that one.
I drew another China address yesterday, but I wasn’t able to print that address so we’ll see how that goes! It seemed like a short and straightforward address in English (some are so long!) so 
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Hi everyone,
Yes, interesting topic. I have 3 cards to China that are shortly falling into oblivion, one at 361 days, one at 343 days and one at 335 days.
Then there is a big gap during the time AUS did not send to CN. Now there are 2 cards travelling at under 30 days so far. The average travel time on my stats is 44 days.
Taiwan: 1 at 317 days, 1 at 61 days, 2 at under 60 days. Average travel time to Taiwan is 31 days.
Also my account was on hold while I was packing, moving and unpacking. But now I am back and more or less organised 
Have a great new week everyone!
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40-50 days would be great! I’ll keep my fingers crossed for something on the lower end of that.
My two cards travelling to China represent 16.5 % of the maximum 12 cards I can have travelling at once (excluding the two expired I’m sitting on, to Luxembourg and Ukraine). That’s quite a high percentage…especially if the travel times are going to be 60+ days. A long time to wait to have more slots freed up. So 
.
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Have any of you received a postcard looking like this? Someone has gone absolutely crazy and attempted to mask the barcodes on this otherwise beautiful postcard I just received! 
They thick black penned two orange barcodes on the FRONT of the card, and a third black barcode printed on the back. It’s insane! And I’m a bit cross.
It also had not one but TWO thin yellow post-it coverings on the back. One with a FOURTH barcode (in black) printed on it - that had ALSO been scribbled out with thick black pen. But at least I could peel that one off!!
I don’t know if it’s Oz Post or if it happened in the US. I usually associate the fluoro orange barcodes with Oz Post…meaning it happened here.
Bad day in the office someone?
Seen anything like it?
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I’ve never seen that! 
That’s very disappointing, I’m sorry that happened to you 
I’d be mad too! I guess the only thing you can do is chalk is up to the often curious journeys of a postcard and say it was part of its adventure 
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.You should write a complaint to Australian Post so at least they think twice before doing that again.
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Thanks for the suggestion FoTiS. Have you ever tried communicatiing with anyone on Australia Post’s help desk? I have. I’d rather just hit my head with a brick. Repeatedly. It’ll be more useful in the longer term. I just got gibberish replies about unrelated topics when I emailed them. Several different gibberish replies from several different operators. They had absolutely no idea what they were doing. 
Ouch, that is rather nasty. Was it travelling for a longer that expected time? I seem to recall reading, probably somewhere else on this forum, that if a piece of mail is for whatever reason incorrectly barcoded during sorting then it can kind of get stuck in a loop and the barcodes then “need” to be blacked out so it can be re-barcoded for proper sorting. I’ll see if I can find a link to that old conversation…
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No, it’s been in the post only three weeks today - from the US - so a completely normal timeframe for me. No sign of misdirection or anything like that. Accurately addressed too. It’s a mystery!
That is very disappointing. I have had these black barcodes on cards from the US too but usually on the back, directly over the person’s name or the ID number 
Hope it does not happen again!
Haha, sorry for my mirth! I have repeatedly complained about stamps on parcels being ‘cancelled’ with a black texta or biro instead of a postmark. Often it is stamps that are not the common variety. I even have said to AU Post that it was pure laziness on the workers behalf.
AU Post DIDN’T like that observation. LOL. But parcels continue to arrive with scribble across the stamps.
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