How do you send post to those on deployment?

[dinasaw]

I work in a boarding school and a couple of our kids have parents who have just been deployed to hot sandy places.
One of the kids asked me how he can send a letter to his Dada nd how much it costs. He has an address which I presume is BFPO as it ends with the operation name.
Please can you give me an idiots guide so I can tell him what to do? And is it the same for all three services? We have kids with parents in the Army, Navy and RAF.
Many thanks.

Hi there,

Sounds like you could do with the webpages I used when DH was posted away recently for the first time!

He is RAF, so I can not speak for the Tri services but I assume its the same, the general rule of thumb is that if it does qualify for free postage (some sandy places do, so check the web page)then it has to be under 2kg and certain dimensions its all on the web page. And if it doesnt qualify for free then here is the page infor from royal mail with the costs on as well!!

hope these helps!!

www.bfpo.mod.uk/faqs.htm

www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/content1?catId=4000 38&mediaId=400164

Clarity

do they have acess to the internet hun as if iremember correctly you can send eblueys for free. i can try and find the website for you if you want.
they just set up an account type the letter up and it gets emailed to the bfpo addy and printed off that end and given to the person

I always sent blueys (PO has them) when my dh was away on deployment,should get there fine aslong as you have the BFPO number.

He left before the onslaught of emails etc so don't know about that side of contact.

I used to send blueys from post office but used to get so cross that they'd only hand me about 5 when I asked and in the early days of young love used to write daily

To be honest the ebluey system is the easiest if you have internet access. You just set up an account with their details. Top tip though write the letter out in a word document then cut and paste cos sometimes it times you out and I can't tell you the tears I shed having to rewrite them!!!

Many thanks for all the advice.
There is internet access the kid could use, but he may not have enough time to write what he wants. Also the kid loves to do little drawings, I'm sure he would want to send one to his Dad too.
I'll pop into the village PO tomorrow and speak to them and see if I can get some blueys for him. I've found conflicting advice on cost so far. I'll warn the post master about the kids going in to send their mail so he can help them.
thanks

Hullo,
I'm just dealing with sending stuff to Op Herrick for first time. Have now got right address, but 1st letter from daughter went with Kandahar on it as well, not country name though. Will this get delivered? I forgot to put return address, so it won't come back.

Also, PO said just to put it in box (wasn't a bluey), but website says to hand it over so it gets a label on. Will it get through?

Doesn't really matter if it goes missing, but I'm wondering. We'll stick to blueys mostly now unless it's a package.

Ta.

Not sure Twistle, BFPO surface/air mail gets the lowest priority (which is partly why it has to be addressed correctly). Just check out the address guidelines on the links above or Rafcom site

HTH