Sent a letter from the UK to Canada and...
 

Greetings all!

Basically, on the 24th July I sent a letter using Royal Mail (from the UK). Now I am unsure whether this was sent by surface mail or air mail, I would however assume airmail as I was told it was the fastest method available.

The reason I am writing this is because it has still yet to arrive. Now I am starting to stress about this as its listed as taking seven working days to arrive, making it overdue.

Does anyone have similar experiences and had their letter arrive? I'm beginning to reside myself to it being lost.... :(

Thanks all

Re: Sent a letter from the UK to Canada and...
 

Whereabouts in Canada were you sending it to and did you send it via a traceable method?

Seven days is really not long, I know that Royal Mail say only 5 working days or similar, but that's only to get it to Canada and after that it's in Canada Post's hands - uh oh! It can take weeks to get there so don't worry yet.

Re: Sent a letter from the UK to Canada and...
 

a few weeks ago my daughter sent a letter from UK(village post office in shropshire!) to her pal in toronto. imagine our surprise when she emailed the next day to say it had arrived!!!!

Re: Sent a letter from the UK to Canada and...
 

Thanks for your reply.

Assuming we are classing Saturday as a working day then it has been 8 days (9 if you include the day I sent it, although it was posted very late in the day). I do not have any method of tracking, thus my concern.

Is it quite common for letters to arrive overdue? I know Royal Mail does not have the best track record, I personally however do not have much experience in using them for international mail

Re: Sent a letter from the UK to Canada and...
 

You arent making me feel much better :(

Re: Sent a letter from the UK to Canada and...
 

Sorry:o

canada post is terribly slow compared to royal mail, I normally reckon on a couple of weeks from uk to canada, I usually reckon on one week to get from one side of winnipeg to the other.

I would imagine your post will arrive anyday

Wasnt there a pub hol in canada this week? - thats not going to help

Re: Sent a letter from the UK to Canada and...
 

When I lived in the UK I found it usually took about 2 weeks to receive a letter from my mother in Halifax and 2 weeks for her to receive anything from me.

I used Royal Mail / CanadaPost

Re: Sent a letter from the UK to Canada and...
 

That's not overdue though - the time that Royal Mail give you is only for the bit they do, not including when Canada Post get hold of it. So I'm sure it did get to Canada within the 8/9 days, but then you need to add time on for Canada Post to get it to it's final destination, which in my experience can be another couple of weeks. Royal Mail is generally much quicker than Canada Post.

I usually allow 2 or 3 weeks to send stuff to/from Canada to/from UK via normal mail.

Is it something urgent? Can you resend it via Fedex or similar?

Re: Sent a letter from the UK to Canada and...
 

From experience, you'll probably find it's the Canadian side that is holding things up.

When we've sent cards, etc to Canada and tracked them it's usually in canada within a day or two at the most, and then upwards of a week or so to get from one area of Canada to another.

Re: Sent a letter from the UK to Canada and...
 

Thanks for the replies all!

The letter is aiming (and hopefully arrives at) Vancouver.

You've all somewhat helped alleviate my worries, however I am still on edge somewhat. I guess I'll have to sit tight for the moment, fingers crossed.

Re: Sent a letter from the UK to Canada and...
 

I guess the moral of the story is to send important mail, recorded. :D

Give it another week before starting to worry.

Re: Sent a letter from the UK to Canada and...
 

I have to say that I agree with some of the posters here. I've found Royal Mail gets it here, but it's the time it takes to reach its destination once in Canada that can be slow. There was a holiday on Monday this week, and of course, there's no Saturday post. It all makes a difference. I wouldn't worry yet.

Re: Sent a letter from the UK to Canada and...
 

Lesson learnt!

Please don't get my hopes up like this :unsure:

I'll keep you guys posted

Re: Sent a letter from the UK to Canada and...
 

We're about 100km out of Vancouver and most mail from the UK arrives about 5 days after posting. Occasionally one or two take up to 7 days.

Canada Post are not that quick or good at thinking outside the box or even the envelope. The upside, the woman that ran Canada Post has gone over to the Royal Mail, presumably to bring some equity to our postal systems.

Re: Sent a letter from the UK to Canada and...
 

Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

Cleveland to Cincinnati - one day.
Cleveland to Toronto - six to seven days.