I'm planning to send some keys to my Parents in the UK by standard airmail, international registered if that is available. Has anyone tried this and can give some feedback on speed & efficiency?
A colleague advised me to steer clear of this claiming that a registered parcel he sent to Germany was held up in customs for 3 weeks.
Thanks
you might want to look at UPS envelopes too - about 50 francs to the UK. If I was sending something like keys, that's what I'd use.
So make sure you send them registered if they have any value and if they're your flat keys, don't put your address on the envelope! Oh and they should tell you how long it takes, but don't be fooled...I once paid an extortionate rate to send something express and was assured it would be in the uk within 2 days. It wasn't.
If its a small parcel (keys in your case )it's unlikely to be held up.
Bigger parcels tend to get held up more often, in my experience Customs will take a closer look at larger boxes.
Einschreiben ( recorded delivery ) is about 6 chf.
Expect arrival within 10 days.
Best
Nick
Do NOT mention there are keys inside it, someone might think they are the keys of either the reciever or the sender and be tempted...Say it's "metal samples" or anything else that gives not too much away, put a value of zero on the parcel, if it gets lost, you can always claim back the value on the lost item form...
Express letters abroad are a waste of money, if you need speed, use the post office own courrier system or any other courrier.
Standard method for complaints in the Swiss postal system is to have the receiver file a complaint and then it is tracked back all the way to the sender. I suspect there is an element of "we don't lose stuff, but useless foreigners do so let them look for it, they probably mislaid it..."
To confirm what Mark say, both UK and Swiss postal services are excellent, when I worked for "La Poste" in Geneva, we certainly had very few problems with our UK colleagues and they were dealt with swiftly.
Small packets like keys, documents, tickets etc have always taken between 3 - 4 days and I've never lost anything.
HTH
In a moment of rarely experienced planning on my part, I had purchased one of those biggish cards for the occasion on my return back from Switzerland the previous week. So all I had to do was write it up, give it to my daughter and tell her to hide it until the day of the anniversary and then hand it to her mum. Simple!
Except having bought the card, normal service was then resumed on the organisation front. So, on the day before the anniversay, the card was still in my laptop case where I had put it upon purchasing it.
Now my wife's used to the not being very good or prompt with presents facet of my manliness, but she does like getting her cards at least on time, which in the past has prompted a few 2am trips to the local 24 hour Tescos.
So it wasn't looking good. I took it over to the post office at about 1pm and they said they could do a service which would get it there within one or two days, and it would probably be two days considering the time. I explained my dilemma and the woman came over all sympathetic. she called a couple of her colleagues over, who were equally sympathetic. They said there was nothing they could do in the way of guaranteeing anything, but that they would do their best.
Bless 'em! It was all I had left, it was a lot cheaper than DHL and it arrived at home at 10.30am the next morning, on the day of the anniversary. One happy wife. One happy Swiss Post Office customer
How much did it cost?
I prefer to dwell more on what it actually saved
I wrote 'Schoggi' on the little green form, so my guess is it's a swiss with a sweet tooth....or a brit who didn't know what it was so opened it anyway....