GarryP

Has anyone ever found a sane, workable, reasonably priced mail service to the UK? Something that can manage the delivery within a week and isn't priced like you were buying the seat.

(note to self, I wonder how much mail you could put in luggage...)

I've just got something I need to turn around and send back, but given it's taken auspost OVER A MONTH to get it here, I'd rather avoid the useless bunch of malingering laggards if I can. Only the couriers are priced stupidly, probably because they know that auspost is so incredibly woeful,

ozzieeagle

2-4 days ?

International Express - Australia Post


You dont really have much choice.....

GarryP

Two problems:

1. I don't consider $42 for a letter to be a reasonable charge. Not even close.
2. It's auspost, and as detailed above, I'm not confident they are even as good as an asthmatic ant.

Oh, and answering my query, if you assume you gave someone 10kg of letters (average 150g say) at $42 a piece, that's $2800. Which sounds like it could work as a business model, you carry the mail with you, we'll cover your ticket...

ozzieeagle

You absolutely have to have those sent in bulk and redelivered the other end... you lose one day ... perhaps not even a day if sent to and picked up from a delivery hub post office and then couriered ......unless UK post does same day.... which it may do for certain items.


Hmmm I wonder how many people would want a service like that ....

jad n rich

[QUOTE=GarryP;12076377]Two problems:

1. I don't consider $42 for a letter to be a reasonable charge. Not even close.
2. It's auspost, and as detailed above, I'm not confident they are even as good as an asthmatic ant.

Very slow between brisbane and melbourne, even express delivery is now taking 4/5 days or more. Normal mail, just forget it, ha ha, worse was over 5 weeks.

Ordered a vacuum cleaner and HS send their stuff oz post, item started in Adelaide, we are in melbourne, but it went to gold coast/brisbane first ? I assume there must be some reason for this, or how else would a 7 hour journey become a 46 hour one ( by road ). Almost 3 weeks later, I cleaned the floor

ozzieeagle

It's the parcel sorting machine.... apparently it's a Dutch supplied off the shelf luggage sorting machine with 7 different software providers to modify it for parcels.....


LOL I"m serious as well.


They started up the new small letter machine last month in Melbourne.... Result thus far.... 5 times the amount of hand sort for us sorters resulting in carry over mail at delivery centers of small letters for the first time in years.


They are terrible at implementing new Machinery at Post, much to my chagrin, because I'm champing at the bit to get a redundancy package out of them.

I think I will be finally getting one before xmas though.... They reckon the small letter machine will be working properly by the end of this month. Plus a 2.5 pct wage rise for all workers in December normally prompts them to put out packages before that accrues to the payout.


I swear there is a full on comedy TV series worth of material based on Aus Post and it's workers. The stories I could tell..... Like the bloke turning up so pissed for work that he still had his pyjama bottoms on.... and he came in by Tram !! Or the day the road drains got blocked in a Northcote street because a Postie dumped a weeks worth of "householder" aka junk mail down them. Could have turned the Merri Creek into a giant Paper Mache site. We had another bloke that looked, well for want of a better word, so "Gympie" that one of those blue buses stopped and asked him if he was ok and wanted to go somewhere.

GarryP

Auspost mail to central point in Aus : $1 - $1.50 - 1 day
Flight from Aus to UK : $1500/100 letters say = $15 - 1 day
Royal mail 1st class : $1 - $1.5 - 1 day

Total cost : $17-18, Total time : 3 days

So, you could undercut auspost, give someone a free flight to the UK, with some luggage, deliver in their 2-4 days, and still have room for a profit.

I wonder if the domain UberMail.com is taken ?

spouse of scouse

I have the same whinge, but the other way around. I've sent 2 birthday cards from the UK to Oz in the last 4 months. One took 6 weeks to arrive, the other 5. There is no option to choose a quicker method, it's good old 'airmail' or nothing.

When I was still living in Oz, before I grew a brain, I sent cash in a Christmas card to the UK (yes yes I know), registered mail with AusPost. Tracked the card to a Royal Mail post office/sorting station in the UK - where is promptly disappeared.

Maybe the Royal Mail and AusPost are related

Beoz

Here's how to get around the monopoly.

http://www.piggybee.com/en/