Personal: B— Royal Mail

On Saturday (14th) at around 4pm, I sent a present off to my GESF by first class postage (costing £1.48) with the hope it’ll be there by Tuesday at the latest.

It’s now Thursday afternoon, and the parcel STILL has not arrived – much to her and my disappointment. 🙁 Royal Mail (the UK’s postal organisation) state on their website that “We aim to deliver more than 90% of First Class letters by the next working day, including Saturdays“. So, assuming that Monday was the first “working day” since posting, it should have arrived at it’s destination (210 miles away) on Tuesday… Two days later and it’s still not there. Working it out from leaving Leicester at midday on Monday (which, considering I caught the last post on Saturday means I’m being generous) – and it arrives first post at its destination tomorrow (we’ll assume 8am, and I hope it DOES arrive then!): it means it had an average speed of 2.28 miles per hour. I could have walked there faster!

Luckily I got a “Certificate Of Posting” (proof that I actually posted the item) – so if it has “got lost” I can claim the value of the items back. But, after speaking to the Royal Mail’s help-desk (08457 740 740) I was informed that the Royal Mail recommends that items posted at any time of the year can take up to 10 working days to be delivered by first class post – and until that time has elapsed they can’t regard anything as “lost”! Ten days? First class?

The Christmas presents I sent down to her today were sent by “Special Delivery” (at a cost of £6.54 as it weighed around 1.5kg) which “guarantees next working day delivery by 12 noon or your money back” (also it allows you to “track and trace” the package via their website and claim up to £250 compensation – “standard” postage only entitles you to 10 times the current 1st class postage rate: at the moment, the maximum compensation is £27).

It’s going to be slightly odd if both parcels arrive at the same time – but posted 5 days apart. But it’s still disappointing that the parcel didn’t arrive in time 🙁