Dear fellow postcrossers down under,
I get the impression so many cards are expiring.
I usually wait till I can send 3 cards at once. One ‘batch’ has expired a few days ago. These were cards for Hungary, Austria and Taiwan.
Now in a few days, another ‘batch’ will expire. One card was for Poland and two for Germany.
All 6 people are active postcrossers.
And then several cards I received lately were expired as well, including three from Germany…!!!
Do you guys have similar experiences?
Any thoughts as of why??
As a beginner it is all extremely frustrating.
Yes. Not on the scale you are experiencing though…because I’ve only been a member for just over two months…but I’m about to have two expired cards already. As I’ve only sent 11 cards total…that’s an 18% expiry rate. It’s not heartening.
The Taiwan card shown below went into the mail 8 days before Aust Post announced a suspension of service to Taiwan. It said mail already en-route would still be delivered, but would be delayed. I’m hopeful it’ll get through eventually. …and yes the recipients of the Taiwan and France cards of mine look pretty active too.
Having not been a member for long, and therefore having no bar to measure my expiry rate against, it’s hard. But I’m very keen to hear if other Postcrossers in Oz are having similar issues as you.
And my first received card came from Germany. It took 43 days to travel. I looked at various people’s stats and it seems like a long time for a card from Germany. I haven’t received any more cards…yet .
I’m hoping with our borders opening back up, the resumption of international flights will mean that the mail might start moving a little more quickly too.
Yes,I’m having the exact same problem especially with postcards travelling the last six weeks or so. I joined Postcrossing in April and up until now all my postcards were reaching their destination. So far I have 3 cards expired, Taiwan, Finland and Ireland. I also have another 3 postcards travelling 40+ days.
At first I thought because I’m in Melbourne and in lockdown for so long, it was taking longer for mail to be processed, but maybe there has been a lack of planes available to send mail overseas. Fingers crossed that with our borders starting to open up more planes will be available.
I recently had a card to Taiwan registered after 80-odd days, so here’s hoping yours arrive soon too. I’ve been a member since mid-2020 so also only know of delivery times in the COVID era but have been pleasantly surprised that all my cards so far have arrived, eventually — except for these two sent to different destinations on the same day, that are now sitting at 270 days
I have a whole bunch of expired card as well… Just to see if anyone has the same situation…
Not counting the card sent in Feb, many expired cards were sent after Aug.
Even the cards sent to my home for my family has travelled for more than 1.5 months and still not being received. I think there’s some major delays with Auspost, especially at locations near Melbourne. I don’t know but hopefully things will get better soon as Victoria is opening up gradually.
A lot of mail is travelling by sea currently (confirmed at my local Post Office) both to and from Aust.
Today I received a postcard from PT that was posted 1 Oct, so it took 49 days to arrive. My travel times have extended out well past what they were 2 years ago.
Hungary and Taiwan are usually very slow. I also have a postcard to Taiwan that is expired (more than 100 days!). Germany and Austria are really unstable. Sometimes, you can get one card there for only 15 days. Sometimes, you need more than 50 days. And postcards from Germany to Australia are even slower.
Recently Australia Post has set their due date for Christmas mail, which is 16 Nov. I guess this fact can also affect the speed.
Thank you all for your answers.
It’s good to know I’m not the only one.
I am a bit worried about being flagged as an unreliable postcrosser. Now 6 cards in a row are expired and I can have only 10 travelling at a time. So it looks like I’m drawing addresses but not sending anything.
I regularly send cards to friends and family (in Belgium) and they don’t arrive either.
Although a few weeks ago, some of them did, all at once, although I did not post them at the same time (not even in the same week). Maybe they travelled in the same boat.
In about the last week I’ve had 5 official cards registered - 3 to NL at 113, 116 and 108 days, CZ at 46 days and PL at 73 days. I’d say the boat recently docked in Rotterdam! I have 20 cards travelling, 14 of those over 38 days and another 20 expired in the last 6 months. I send quite a few to Russia so some of those will probably get registered. My cards often ‘expire’ to be registered at a later date. I’ve sent about 160 cards in the last 6 months. I think its got worse lately, so I take a break from sending when that happens and hopefully more airmail will return.
I’ve had a couple of cards to DE take over 3 months! Gone are the days when cards to common countries like DE, UK, US only took 4 or 5 days!
I’d suspected I wasn’t the only Australian with a lot of expired cards. Suspicion confirmed!
Now for another suspicion. I suspect I may have the misfortune to have the record for the highest number of currently expired cards, a not so grand total of 85. I did reach the stage of amazement if any card was registered that had travelled less than 60 days. Lately a few seem to be reaching their destination in under 1 month.
As for received cards - a whole lot recently turned up that were posted in various countries on 11/11/21. None posted in October have yet arrived. Only one sent in September has reached my mail box. There must be more out there somewhere en route as I registered a many cards in September.
My postman was so worried about my lack of mail, he did a search back at his base just in case some had been overlooked.
Onwards and upwards!
I have 7 expired at the moment.
4 to ghostcrossers, definitely no hope
2 to China, there is always hope
1 to postcrosser who rarely logs in, I decided not to send second card
I’ve just had 2 postcards registered in Germany at 125 and 126 days. The boats obviously just made its way round to Hamburg but I find the travel time to Germany staggering. I also had one yesterday to SPB at 87 days.
It does give hope though that some other expired cards will arrive
Ok,I got a postcard to Germany registered at 128 days recently as well.
One more interesting thing is, on 1st Oct (World Postcard Day), I sent 2 cards to Germany, 2 to US and 2 to Hong Kong. The two US cards got registered within 24 days. Probably both are travelled by air. One Germany card got registered at 41 days (probably by air as well?) and the other one still not registered (hope it’s on a boat but not lost). But both Hong Kong cards have not been received yet. I don’t know but… do boats to Hong Kong usually take more than 104 days to travel? I mean the odds that two cards to the same destination being lost is quite low… Sometimes I even suspect the guys in the mail center thought that I didn’t pay enough postage and threw my cards away.
Yesterday was Germany’s day. I think cards have been piling up somewhere and they just got delivered. I had 5 officials registerd at 128, 86, 86, 54 and 20 days and 2 RR’s at 114 and 64 days. Hopefully there is more to come. That gap between received and sent is narrowing.
In the past few days I too have had some cards (officials and RRs) that were travelling for over 3 months registered for Germany, and also to Poland. Maybe a blockage on a mail route somewhere has been cleared. So hope can be fulfilled!
…and yes the recipients of the Taiwan and France cards of mine look pretty active too.
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