Someone reassure me!

[Allromanticsmeetthesamefate]

I have just sent stingy DH to the post office with some parcel boxes to send off to family in Scotland. We were very late posting due to late delivery of gifts to us but was sure if we sent off Track 24 first thing this morning we would be fine.

However DH has retuned and said that he wasn’t paying the postage for 24 hour service and has gone track 28 instead! 😭

His logic was neither were guaranteed so better to go for the cheaper option.

Feel so gutted had put so much effort into everyone gifts and, especially my Nephew who is having his 1st Christmas and now almost certain they won’t arrive in time!

If they don’t arrive in time then they’ll have the lovely gifts a couple of days later - no harm done!
That said I posted something Friday afternoon basic first class to rural Cornwall (I’m in London) and it arrived less than 24 hours later so you never know.
Happy Christmas

Your nephew won’t know if the gifts are a day or two late. It’s fine, tbh I would have gone with the cheaper option too if neither were guaranteed to arrive on time.

Thanks everyone, obviously in the grand scheme of things them arriving a few days after Christmas is not the worst thing in the world but when you put so much thought (and though not as important) expense into picking the perfect gift it’s disappointing to think it won’t get there in time.

@GRCP funnily enough we have posted from rural Cornwall so fingers crossed some RM magic happens.

I think he’s right. If neither are guaranteed then I’d have picked the cheapest option too.

I mean it’s no big deal at the end of the day.

but it would piss me off that DH didn’t do as I’d asked and sent then tracked 24, over a couple quid difference. Thats just annoying and embarrassingly cheap.

Depends on the price difference. A couple of pounds I’d be annoyed. More than the cost of the gift - I’d have used the cheaper option if neither were guaranteed.

No harm done as a PP says because neither are guaranteed. But given that they are Christmas gifts and it’s almost Christmas I would’ve expected him to choose the fastest service (as long as price not extortionate) because then there’s a better chance that they will arrive quickly. RM is much better than it used to be at this time of year as it doesn’t have the monopoly on parcel delivery anymore, so there’s a chance they’ll arrive on Christmas Eve. I still wouldn’t be happy with his logic, though!

This isn’t an AIBU, I know I’m not. For clarity what DH was told at the PO and what he told me were probably two completely different things, I do think track 24 would have made it, especially as he was in the post office 1st thing this morning.

My post was in the hope that anyone could reassure me that my parcels might still make it when posted track 48 as I will be really sad if they don’t make it on time.

This. Postal charges are shocking.

Tracked 48hr will be there Wednesday unless exceptional circumstances. Royal Mail parcel service is the best of all of them just now.

@MrsSkylerWhite have a think about it. The parcel needs to be collected, driven to a depot, unloaded, scanned in and then reloaded sent to the mail centre, sent on (often the other side of the country) to a local delivery depot, sorted and then loaded to a van/bicycle/sack and taken out by the local post person and delivered to the door.
Do you still think it is expensive? what would it cost you (time & expense) to drive a letter or parcel from your home to somewhere a few hundred miles away?

Make him have half a shandy next time he wants a pint of beer, if it's so important to save money.

Thank you @TMMC1 this was the kind of reply I was hoping for!!

Does he often claim he knows more than you?

Yes I do. That doesn’t really stack up because I would be driving just one letter, not hundreds or thousands.
Sent a late gift yesterday (our local PO ‘‘tis open every day, also the corner shop). First class, not registered or tracked. Weighed probably 400g. Over £12.
Much cheaper to use a courier company online but couldn’t have it picked up until Tuesday this time.

@Allromanticsmeetthesamefate I ship around 800 parcels a week with RM using tracked 24 and 48. We only get one or two issues a month.
I too would have used 24hr as occasionally things do go wrong, that's reality with what is actually quite a complex process.
I am confident your parcels will arrive though. x

It was large then. They price on size not just weight.

Even without Christmas tracked 24 is only an estimate not a guarantee. Not to be the miser of the thread (just my recent experience) posted a parcel tracked 48 on 8th December. It took 8 days to get to it's destination. And you said yourself your gifts were late being delivered to you. Hopefully the Black Friday backlogs are cleared now and you get lucky.

My (hopeful) thinking is yes out of the end of the Christmas shopping and Black Friday deals and also most sane people have already sent their parcels!!!

You had already missed the recomended last posting date cut off for both services to be before Christmas though, so really at this point makes no difference.
The time you post it in the day has absolutely no bearing on anything. It won't actually go anywhere until the collection from the post office later this afternoon. So being there to post it at 8am won't get it any quicker than being there at 3.30pm.

I would have gone for the cheaper option too, as posting this late I would have assumed that even the 24 hour tracking option wasn't guaranteed.
I am in Edinburgh and sent a parcel to a friend near Glasgow using 48 hour tracked. It arrived four days later.
So I wouldn't think the parcel will arrive before Christmas but it really doesn't matter. The baby won't know any different!

That’s not strictly true, most offices (definitely ours) have collection pick ups more than once a day, especially in the run up to Christmas.

Your nephew will probably (hopefully?) have so much to open on the day that it might be nicer for your present not to be just one more in the pile.

He's right, as a former postie I can tell you tracked 24 is absolutely not a 24 hour service anymore, and at this time of year the only way to guarantee those parcels arrived on time would be to shell out for 1pm next day Special Delivery (and even then... Depends on the DO that's delivering them).

I'm not a postie anymore but I'm still in touch with my old colleagues and they're absolutely shafted and we're not even a busy office, they're taking tracked parcels back undelivered every day after being out from 8am to 8pm and they're just piling up in the office. Royal Mail has been broken this year sadly, it's why I left.