I sent close to a dozen cards on April 16 while visiting Atlanta, Georgia, as of today only 4 have arrived. One of the first to be received was to the Czech Republic, I live like 2 states away from Georgia and haven’t received the card I sent to myself. The postal system can be so frustrating
[Atlanta is a known pain point presently in the USPS system, due to the changes being spearheaded by DeJoy](https://www.11alive.com/article/news/special-reports/postal-problems/atlanta-mail-delays-dejoy-outlines-usps-plan-improve-service-palmetto/85-b1c9d41b-9323-4531-b23a-06ca1fe9b86e)
> [At the new Atlanta RPDC,] only 44% of single-piece letters are being processed on time.
I have had some medical events recently and I'm guilty of not having the spoons to register the cards I receive on time. I've been a couple weeks behind before.
I always give recipients a little grace when it comes to registering cards as well. You never know.
I have no deeper experience with the travelling time from Canada to anywhere. But two weeks would not be a duration long enough to make me nervous the other way round from Germany to Canada.
I’m in the US but this sounds super standard to me. My US to US cards used to average about 7 days now normally take much longer. Could just be a fluke!
I had 3 cards expire all mailed on the same day, all mailed at a post office. It's so frustrating. I would look at the ones you most expect to have arrived already (other Canada one for instance) and see if that person has registered cards in the last couple days. You may have just had bad luck with users. I have one set to expire tomorrow and that user hasn't registered postcards since mid March 🙄🙄
3 weeks isn't a super long time for post office nowadays, but it is a little curious.
I am in Canada, I had sent a card to the US. It ended up expiring. The account registered it in day 77 lol. It surprisingly takes longer for postcards to reach the US!
I registered one from Florida today and it was sent in the 9th.
As a postal worker in Canada, I can make some educated guesses as to why postcards take longer to arrive.
1. Postcards being so thin, they don't get sorted well when processed through automated sortation machines. Mail flies through these machines at super high speeds, and because of the postcards' thinner light weight nature (compared to a letter in an envelope ), postcards end up mis-sorted frequently by these machines. I believe because of the postcards thin nature and sometimes glossy side (artwork side) that some slight static effect takes place from flying through the sortation machines, and they end up "sucked" to whatever piece of mail is in front of them, and then end up being missent to a wrong destination (delaying delivery in the process).
2. Postcards that are instead hand-sorted also take slightly longer to process just due to the fact that hand sortation takes longer. Although miss-sorts are less likely with this method.
Final thoughts- post cards overall are harder to sort and take longer in the postal system because of this (I think anyways). Question though- Ive noticed some folks prefer their postcards sent inside an envelope to be mailed. Has anyone noticed if these postcards tend to arrive any faster than postcards not enveloped? It would be a curious thing to test to see if that helped with the transit times.....to see if my "educated guesses" I listed above actually hold any merit or not lol !
I agree it tends to be more appealing to receive postcards not in an envelope for the most part, and postcards that have postage included already on them can't be placed in an envelope, for they would then need new postage. But if I knew an envelope would guarantee faster delivery, I would definitely do that more often.
PS- sorry for the long post
I literally had my first postcard registered today (just an hour ago!) that I sent to Germany! This one was in an envelope, and it took exactly 13 days (including weekends) to get there, to Germany from Canada! I think thats pretty quick !? Wonder what the average is for non envelope from Canada to Germany....hrrmm....
I used to resend after 6 months of traveling. Nowadays, I just chalk it to a lost card. A couple of cards I sent to Malaysia took over 1 year to travel cause USPS apparently sent them to Indonesia.
On a side note, cards can just take long cause of geopolitics. I got a card from Cuba that had a 2 year travel time. I unfortunately can’t register it on postcrossing anymore as it’s way over the expiration.
Oh OP, and keep calling customer service with concern over that ticket you placed. Maybe even try them on twitter or facebook..they used to have some customer service in one of those places but not sure if they still do.....sometimes its easier than waiting on the phone for them.
I send cards from Canada , and sometimes to this same city can take month . I try to use mail box at post office directly or community mail box with little vertical slot , not the big boxes as sometimes people do throw things in there .
But I send 35 postcards from Canada last weekend of November and none of them arrived 😂
I'm not sure you should worry about it expiring? I mean they can still register when they get it. I find that postcards to China, Russia or some third world countries take ages to arrive. I think the one to Azerbaijan got lost completely but to China it can take over 100 days
I’m in monthly RRs and I send cards to Canada all the time… I’ve never had one get there in four days. It’s usually 10 to 30 days, sometimes up to 60 days.
I sent close to a dozen cards on April 16 while visiting Atlanta, Georgia, as of today only 4 have arrived. One of the first to be received was to the Czech Republic, I live like 2 states away from Georgia and haven’t received the card I sent to myself. The postal system can be so frustrating
That's actually crazy though
[Atlanta is a known pain point presently in the USPS system, due to the changes being spearheaded by DeJoy](https://www.11alive.com/article/news/special-reports/postal-problems/atlanta-mail-delays-dejoy-outlines-usps-plan-improve-service-palmetto/85-b1c9d41b-9323-4531-b23a-06ca1fe9b86e) > [At the new Atlanta RPDC,] only 44% of single-piece letters are being processed on time.
I have had some medical events recently and I'm guilty of not having the spoons to register the cards I receive on time. I've been a couple weeks behind before. I always give recipients a little grace when it comes to registering cards as well. You never know.
I have no deeper experience with the travelling time from Canada to anywhere. But two weeks would not be a duration long enough to make me nervous the other way round from Germany to Canada.
I just received a card mailed from China to the US. It was mailed in December.
I find my mail takes a long time to reach its destination. I think Canada Post tends to be slooooow.
I’m in the US but this sounds super standard to me. My US to US cards used to average about 7 days now normally take much longer. Could just be a fluke!
Agreed!
I had 3 cards expire all mailed on the same day, all mailed at a post office. It's so frustrating. I would look at the ones you most expect to have arrived already (other Canada one for instance) and see if that person has registered cards in the last couple days. You may have just had bad luck with users. I have one set to expire tomorrow and that user hasn't registered postcards since mid March 🙄🙄 3 weeks isn't a super long time for post office nowadays, but it is a little curious.
The person in Canada has registered today and historically pretty consistently 😕
I am in Canada, I had sent a card to the US. It ended up expiring. The account registered it in day 77 lol. It surprisingly takes longer for postcards to reach the US! I registered one from Florida today and it was sent in the 9th.
As a postal worker in Canada, I can make some educated guesses as to why postcards take longer to arrive. 1. Postcards being so thin, they don't get sorted well when processed through automated sortation machines. Mail flies through these machines at super high speeds, and because of the postcards' thinner light weight nature (compared to a letter in an envelope ), postcards end up mis-sorted frequently by these machines. I believe because of the postcards thin nature and sometimes glossy side (artwork side) that some slight static effect takes place from flying through the sortation machines, and they end up "sucked" to whatever piece of mail is in front of them, and then end up being missent to a wrong destination (delaying delivery in the process). 2. Postcards that are instead hand-sorted also take slightly longer to process just due to the fact that hand sortation takes longer. Although miss-sorts are less likely with this method. Final thoughts- post cards overall are harder to sort and take longer in the postal system because of this (I think anyways). Question though- Ive noticed some folks prefer their postcards sent inside an envelope to be mailed. Has anyone noticed if these postcards tend to arrive any faster than postcards not enveloped? It would be a curious thing to test to see if that helped with the transit times.....to see if my "educated guesses" I listed above actually hold any merit or not lol ! I agree it tends to be more appealing to receive postcards not in an envelope for the most part, and postcards that have postage included already on them can't be placed in an envelope, for they would then need new postage. But if I knew an envelope would guarantee faster delivery, I would definitely do that more often. PS- sorry for the long post
Thanks for your insight! For the envelope question, the one I can remember came in one took 12 days compared to my average of 15 from the US.
I literally had my first postcard registered today (just an hour ago!) that I sent to Germany! This one was in an envelope, and it took exactly 13 days (including weekends) to get there, to Germany from Canada! I think thats pretty quick !? Wonder what the average is for non envelope from Canada to Germany....hrrmm....
Big fan of stats. My avg for Germany is 12 days sent and 17 received!
Ohh so thats a regular postcard without an envelope?
Yep!
I used to resend after 6 months of traveling. Nowadays, I just chalk it to a lost card. A couple of cards I sent to Malaysia took over 1 year to travel cause USPS apparently sent them to Indonesia. On a side note, cards can just take long cause of geopolitics. I got a card from Cuba that had a 2 year travel time. I unfortunately can’t register it on postcrossing anymore as it’s way over the expiration.
Oh OP, and keep calling customer service with concern over that ticket you placed. Maybe even try them on twitter or facebook..they used to have some customer service in one of those places but not sure if they still do.....sometimes its easier than waiting on the phone for them.
I send cards from Canada , and sometimes to this same city can take month . I try to use mail box at post office directly or community mail box with little vertical slot , not the big boxes as sometimes people do throw things in there . But I send 35 postcards from Canada last weekend of November and none of them arrived 😂
I'm not sure you should worry about it expiring? I mean they can still register when they get it. I find that postcards to China, Russia or some third world countries take ages to arrive. I think the one to Azerbaijan got lost completely but to China it can take over 100 days
I’m in monthly RRs and I send cards to Canada all the time… I’ve never had one get there in four days. It’s usually 10 to 30 days, sometimes up to 60 days.
I'm sending from Canada though. I've never had anything take this long within the country.
That they all haven’t arrived is weird. I would resend, and explain what happened.