Back before regular folks started making their travel arrangements online, when you still needed paper tickets for planes and cruise ships, I bought an all inclusive travel package by phone from a travel agency in Florida. They overnighted the packet of travel documents via Fedex timed to arrive two days before my trip. Fedex came to my house at 9am while I was at work, and by the time I found the delivery attempt notice when I came home at lunch they were already on a plane back to Florida! I called the travel agency and they called Fedex to rush the documents so they could overnight them back to me, they arrived the day of the trip an hour before we had to leave for the airport. Way too much stress for a vacation.
That was one of my best travel deals, round trip air west Texas to Orlando, three nights at the brand new Portofino Bay Hotel (rack rate $500 night), car rental, three day early entry premium guest tickets to Universal Studios, three dinner vouchers at restaurants on the lake, and a four day cruise to the Bahamas for $1,200 each.
@moondrake I still can’t help but have a little angst leaving on a trip with no tickets for anything in hand. It always surprises me a little when flights, hotels and cruises go smoothly with nothing but my phone and id.
@Pamtha I’m old enough to remember when the Orlando airport was one large room with Pan Am on one side and TWA on the other, and yes, the facilities were down a path. We had to walk about a block from the waiting area to the plane itself and then climb up the portable stair way. And gas was 16 cents.
One time Pat Boone was on our flight. Another time I found a $20 bill on the airway, which was a medium-size fortune at the time.
@moondrake It’s been a long time since I’ve flown, and I don’t know if I could relax the entire trip without the comfort of a paper ticket in my purse.
@magic_cave I was sitting in a waiting room at some airport in the south where we boarded the planes from the tarmac. A plane swept the building with jet wash (or whatever that wind is) when turning and the door to the tarmac was not secured and slammed open. This enormous hot wind came in and blew everything short of people and luggage into a pile at the end of the room in a heartbeat. I was sitting there reading and suddenly my book was gone and I was looking at all the people across from me and their hair and clothing were all pointing downwind in a very cartoonish way and we all had the same flummoxed expression. We had to go and sort through our belonging and much of it had food and drink that had been snatched out of people’s hands spilled on it. Fortunately my book survived. I have led an interesting life.
@compunaut Only knee deep - the drifts I walked though - barefoot - were shoulder high at least. I had to shovel my way though as I walked. With my bare hands.
@Pantheist I cannot speak for “companies” but I know for a fact that the USPS does slow stuff down for SmartPost and SurePost, etc.
Things sent via regular parcel post generally arrive at the local PO around 9 AM, then leave that PO, are delivered to my job and finally marked as delivered. Total elapsed time is usually about an hour, sometimes almost two hours.
Things sent via S*Post generally arrive at the local PO around 9AM, are tossed into a bin there and then marked as delivered. Total time is usually less than 30 minutes. The actual delivery to my job takes a minimum of one more day and frequently takes three days. The worst delay was five days.
@Pantheist FedEx 100% does this. I have never gotten a package early from them, in fact, I have seen it sit at my local sorting center. It was sent FedEx 2nd day air from a location 20 miles away from me, and it sat for two days at the sorting center with a status that said “Not due for Delivery”. Google it and you’ll find others in the same situation.
UPS, for what it’s worth, often delivers packages earlier, at least in my experience.
As far as SmartPost is concerned, it’s a consolidation service. It will sit in a sorting facility until there’s a full truckload or space on a truck for it. They won’t send half a truck full of SmartPost because there’s no deadline for SmartPost. USPS Media Mail is the same way.
This looks a lot like a package that got sent to me with the wrong zip code. It kept circling around because they’d keep trying to deliver it, but there was no address on the delivery route. I finally called the post master in that zip code and they found the package, fixed the address and sent it on to me.
@Fuzzalini Nah - it’s just SmartPost not living up to their name. Unlike UPS’ SurePost, FedEx’s SmartPost uses separate routes and facilities to sort/distribute.
Oops. Someone probably made a mistake.
let us consult the mehcronomicon.
“for he that would attempt to analyze that which is smartpost, shall reap madness. actually, you’ll just go batshit fucking crazy. so say we all.”
Back before regular folks started making their travel arrangements online, when you still needed paper tickets for planes and cruise ships, I bought an all inclusive travel package by phone from a travel agency in Florida. They overnighted the packet of travel documents via Fedex timed to arrive two days before my trip. Fedex came to my house at 9am while I was at work, and by the time I found the delivery attempt notice when I came home at lunch they were already on a plane back to Florida! I called the travel agency and they called Fedex to rush the documents so they could overnight them back to me, they arrived the day of the trip an hour before we had to leave for the airport. Way too much stress for a vacation.
That was one of my best travel deals, round trip air west Texas to Orlando, three nights at the brand new Portofino Bay Hotel (rack rate $500 night), car rental, three day early entry premium guest tickets to Universal Studios, three dinner vouchers at restaurants on the lake, and a four day cruise to the Bahamas for $1,200 each.
@moondrake Yeah, but gas was 25 cents per gallon and you walked to the one room schoolhouse?
@Pamtha “It was uphill both ways and the snow was knee-deep the whole way”
@moondrake I still can’t help but have a little angst leaving on a trip with no tickets for anything in hand. It always surprises me a little when flights, hotels and cruises go smoothly with nothing but my phone and id.
@Pamtha I’m old enough to remember when the Orlando airport was one large room with Pan Am on one side and TWA on the other, and yes, the facilities were down a path. We had to walk about a block from the waiting area to the plane itself and then climb up the portable stair way. And gas was 16 cents.
One time Pat Boone was on our flight. Another time I found a $20 bill on the airway, which was a medium-size fortune at the time.
@moondrake It’s been a long time since I’ve flown, and I don’t know if I could relax the entire trip without the comfort of a paper ticket in my purse.
@magic_cave I was sitting in a waiting room at some airport in the south where we boarded the planes from the tarmac. A plane swept the building with jet wash (or whatever that wind is) when turning and the door to the tarmac was not secured and slammed open. This enormous hot wind came in and blew everything short of people and luggage into a pile at the end of the room in a heartbeat. I was sitting there reading and suddenly my book was gone and I was looking at all the people across from me and their hair and clothing were all pointing downwind in a very cartoonish way and we all had the same flummoxed expression. We had to go and sort through our belonging and much of it had food and drink that had been snatched out of people’s hands spilled on it. Fortunately my book survived. I have led an interesting life.
@compunaut Only knee deep - the drifts I walked though - barefoot - were shoulder high at least. I had to shovel my way though as I walked. With my bare hands.
@moondrake That story definitely beats any I could come up with,
@Kidsandliz Barefoot?? You mean you had feet?? My Uncle used to say that when anyone tried to one up him.
Sometimes I think delivery companies intentionally slow down packages sent with cheaper rates.
@Pantheist I cannot speak for “companies” but I know for a fact that the USPS does slow stuff down for SmartPost and SurePost, etc.
Things sent via regular parcel post generally arrive at the local PO around 9 AM, then leave that PO, are delivered to my job and finally marked as delivered. Total elapsed time is usually about an hour, sometimes almost two hours.
Things sent via S*Post generally arrive at the local PO around 9AM, are tossed into a bin there and then marked as delivered. Total time is usually less than 30 minutes. The actual delivery to my job takes a minimum of one more day and frequently takes three days. The worst delay was five days.
@Pantheist FedEx 100% does this. I have never gotten a package early from them, in fact, I have seen it sit at my local sorting center. It was sent FedEx 2nd day air from a location 20 miles away from me, and it sat for two days at the sorting center with a status that said “Not due for Delivery”. Google it and you’ll find others in the same situation.
UPS, for what it’s worth, often delivers packages earlier, at least in my experience.
As far as SmartPost is concerned, it’s a consolidation service. It will sit in a sorting facility until there’s a full truckload or space on a truck for it. They won’t send half a truck full of SmartPost because there’s no deadline for SmartPost. USPS Media Mail is the same way.
This is my best one yet. Nine different states within a week.
This looks a lot like a package that got sent to me with the wrong zip code. It kept circling around because they’d keep trying to deliver it, but there was no address on the delivery route. I finally called the post master in that zip code and they found the package, fixed the address and sent it on to me.
@Fuzzalini Nah - it’s just SmartPost not living up to their name. Unlike UPS’ SurePost, FedEx’s SmartPost uses separate routes and facilities to sort/distribute.
FWIW, they used to be more chaotic. This was a post written by some
goatCEO named @snapster:http://www.woot.com/forums/viewpost.aspx?postid=1387942
Better than this bullshit… Same city for dayz, scheduled delivery was yesterday.
Also I live in Seattle so that’s not gonna be here this week at all.
@grum maybe this happened?
@carl669 @grum More likely this…
/giphy fedex sucks
