So if I go on travel mode and stop getting cards while on travel mode, supposedly it gets made up to me later. For whatever reason, it does not seem like that really happens. Comments?
I am not sure what you mean. I’ve always had my sent/received cards even out even after I’ve been on travel mode. The only time when I’ve had a huge discrepancy was because of the pandemic and postal services being disrupted everywhere. I don’t think postal services are back to normal yet. From your profile, it looks like you just joined in January–so you probably haven’t seen Postcrossing in action during “normal” times.
As you are from a very active country it might take a while until cards get to you but they will.
Coming from Germany I have the same problem. As many people like to send to as many different countries as possible cards from very active countries such as Germany, Russia and the US cannot be sent immediately. Addresses line up until other addresses from this country where cards got registered befor yours, are given out. When it’s your turn your address is given to someone and this someone will send a card. However this someone might be from a country with slow postal service. So it’s not unusual to wait for a card.
BTW: when I say your address is waiting in line to be given out I am talking about one ore two, max. Three days.
Postcrossing teaches us patience, especially during the first few month. It will get better. Promise
2 Likes
And don’t forget the huge cuts made to the US postal service last year - those have not been fixed yet. I find mail to & from Canada & the US somewhat better than last fall, but sometimes it still takes like 3 weeks to get to someplace that would normally be closer to a week. So your cards coming to you may still be enroute within the US.
As the others have said, the cards are probably just taking their time to get to you. It may feel slow to you but your statistics look perfectly fine.
Some of your sent cards were registered last week, so there probably are some cards on their way to you for less than a week. My last cards to the USA took more than a month.
Four* of the seven* cards you are due were sent less than a week ago, so it’s three* cards that travel between ten and fourteen days. Given the different countries cards can come from, I’d say everything is in perfect normal order.
Of course, you still can check if you are out of travel mode and in active mode.
*yes, I know that there is some +/- in the system. On the other side, if the switch from travel mode back to active happend only recently, it’s even more than four cards traveling even less than a week.
1 Like
Thanks for responding. I hope my sent and received eventually even out more.
Yes, this project does require patience. Thanks for responding.
Thanks for responding. There are challenges with postal systems. I am grateful we have actual mail still, “snail mail”.
1 Like
Thanks for responding. My experience is hard to explain. Since I have gotten cards recently with recent postmarks, I tend to wonder if there are still cards that got delayed in floating over to me from back when I was on travel mode. In my neighborhood, we do have mail mixups and if a neighbor gets my card, they may not bring it over or redirect it to me. I have no control over that so I just have to accept it if it happens.
Thanks for responding. It is early here and I am not fully awake. I am not following your logic. I am not going by the present cards I have sent most recently. I am going by how many I sent total and how many I received total. I enjoy sending and receiving. It may even out, it may not. It will be what it will be. I would like it to even out if possible. I guess I do not really understand the algorithm.
The cards that were not sent to you when you were in travel mode, will be sent when you end the travel mode. So your address will have gone out to other postcrossers when you ended the travel mode - depending on when that happened, which only you know, the cards might be on the way to you since a few days only.
Difference of 7 is not really big, especially since you are in a country with many users and also there is the fact that mail to the USA has been very slow for a while. Sometimes cards from Europe need as much as 2 months to reach your country.
1 Like
I don’t really understand - do you mean inactive instead of travel mode? It doesn’t look like you travelled?
Anyway for the purpose of your question it doesn’t make a difference as both stop cards being sent to you, and in both cases you’ll receive all later.
You have 7 more sent than received, so you’re due 7 cards. Your last 7 cards were registered in the last 10-12 days - I don’t know when you went back to active but the earliest a card might have been sent to you was around mid-March. Unless they’re coming from somewhere super close and efficient, it’s almost impossible that something came to you so fast, given how bad sending to the USA has been since mid-2020. My last card to the USA took 45 days and by now I consider a month the minimum normal travel time to the USA. Come back in 2-3-4 weeks and you’ll probably have received at least 10 cards.
2 Likes
Thank you for responding. Maybe I’ll get a card from a land I may not have rven heard of!
I’m curios, at what time were you in travel mode?
From what I see, by the beginning of March eleven of your sent cards were registered and until now you have received 11 cards that were sent to you before or on March 4. So, at that time your account was even.
Then, there are nine days where it seems no card was sent to you even though two more of your cards were registered. So if your account was active, there should be at least two cards on their way to you that were sent during this time. It’s been less than a month, which is a normal time for cards from many countries to travel.
However, if you were in travel mode between March 5 and March 12 your address would not have been given to anyone during that time, and all cards you receive now should be dated after this time.
But it’s always the most recent cards from you that were registered by their lucky recipient that send your adress into the pool where we others can draw your adress. So as long as you are sending/your cards are registered, you’ll always have an imbalance.*
But, as others have pointed out already: the cards you were due when you ended travel mode**/switched back to active again are on their way. It only depends when exactly you came back to active.
*sometimes one arrival of a card from a user can trigger their adress to be drawn more than once, so it’s not always the 1-on-1-effect … but only the Software’s Artificial Itelligence understands when and how this happens
**adresses of travelmoders are not given out, since they are not at home/can’t register cards; in that sense, as mentioned by others, travelmode = inactive
2 Likes
It seems you may understand all this more than I. I was in travel mode for a week or so in February 2021. Not sure of the exact dates right this second. Two cards came yesterday from Germany.
It can be hard to communicate this way sometimes. I joined. I was in active mode. In February, I traveled a bit. I put self in travel mode. I continued to send cards but the travel mode blocked me from receiving cards. Then, I got off travel mode. I think maybe when I got more recent cards, like when I got back from travel mode, I wondered why some of those were dated March when cards from February had not come in. I think maybe cards from far away are still on the way here and it is taking 2 months to get here because it is April now.
Being in travel mode doesn’t change anything if none of your sent cards are received/registered during this time. Your address only goes to the pool when one, or more, of your sent cards are received/registered. If none of your cards are received/registered during your travel the travel mode doesn’t have to prevent you from getting cards because your address isn’t in the pool anyway.
Going into travel mode only makes sense when you want to sent cards from another country or when you are away from home for a longer period of time.
1 Like
I use travel mode for short trips as well when I am planning to send cards from my destination even if it’s within my own (large) country. I also like the mailboxes popping up on your map that way.
1 Like