Swiss Post - Letter sent to wrong country

Daily Life, Swiss News and General Topics
41
Well, it appears to have left on a plane from Newark Airport.

I called USPS and the lady believes it should continue to the UK rather than return here. Let's see.

She couldn't see where the flight was going, but looking at Newark flights there was a United flight to Heathrow around the same time... fingers crossed

42
Well I guess that as the USPS won’t be getting very much for their share of the postage they are returning it with the empty mailbags*

*Inside joke. Since the ‘40s airlines that want contacts to carry mail have to carry empty returning mailbags for free. Absolutely the lowest priority cargo on any airline.

Both LX and UA fly EWR-ZRH daily; UA also daily to GVA.

43
In fact, this is Salzburg, not Vienna.

44
I wonder if your passport presented itself to US immigration obviously it’s been sent back for not having an ESTA.

45
Hahaha good one. Btw visits to Cuba automatically cancels ESTA and qualification for future ESTA applications. I didn't know that this rule was implemented 2 years ago.

46
The saga continues.

While the passport reached Heathrow on the 23rd, it hasn't moved since.

I just see the following message on USPS:

International Transit

Departed

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND

January 23, 2024, 8:03 pm

All signs point to it being in customs, but I'm reading stories of people waiting for weeks until packages are released (and I need to travel in 5 weeks...)

Mind blowing...!

47
Departed London should mean it has cleared customs and has been given to the Royal Mail for delivery.

48
Check the tracking at the Royal Mail website.

49
Thanks for your comments both.

Royal Mail tracking doesn't show anything besides being "Accepted" on 15th Jan (when I sent it from Switzerland).

I called them and they suspect it's left Heathrow and in customs (i.e. Langley)

Hoping for news by Monday

50
About 10 years ago, I ordered something from the US. I was happy to get the notice that it had shipped and began following the progress of the package from somewhere in the US Midwest.

It seemed a bit odd when the shipping service (I think FedEx, but it could have been UPS) put the package on a flight to London, but things took a real turn when the package got on the next flight... to South Africa. Yep, someone had written "SZ" in the Country Code field. Which is Swaziland (now eSwatini) I eventually got the package -- well traveled and about a week later than I'd expected

51
Yikes!!

On my side I'm getting a little worried.

It's 'probably' in customs at Langley, however I'm reading horror stories about letters / packages taking weeks or months to be processed there, and there's no way of tracking them. Worth noting that Langley is a 30 min drive from where I sent the thing

I think my only option at this point is to declare my passport as lost and try to get the replacement as soon as possible. Will do that on Monday if no updates....

What a mess.