Problems with Amazon delivering while on vacation

[FireFool]

Checking to see if others have had the experience I just had, and if they've figured out any solutions. I have vitamins delivered monthly as part of Amazon's "Subscribe & Save". Supposedly you pick a delivery date and the item will get delivered that day. There's mechanisms to adjust that date if you do it far enough in advance. Now my problem - we go on vacation often and it just so happens that the current vacation would have had a delivery while we were away. Well a month in advance I change the date to the day we are scheduled to come back - Feb 6th, but today I get a notice from UPS it's coming this Friday the first. Needless to say I'm pretty upset that my efforts were for naught and now I have to ask someone to pick the package up from my front door while I'm away. If I knew they were going to deliver the package five days earlier I could have left it as initially scheduled and I would have gotten it yesterday or the day before. It's looking like I won't be able to use subscribe and save in the future as we travel so often.

 

[Aerides]

The delivery dates on Subscribe and Save aren't very specific. They are "by this date" vs. "on this date". I often get my items in more than one shipment, over a few days.

In your case, you can have UPS hold it and then put in a redelivery thru UPS vs. finding someone to handle it for you. Should be able to do this online.

I often just defer items with S&S, or double up other months, as I get a reminder each month so that works for me.

 

[audreyh1]

Checking to see if others have had the experience I just had, and if they've figured out any solutions. I have vitamins delivered monthly as part of Amazon's "Subscribe & Save". Supposedly you pick a delivery date and the item will get delivered that day. There's mechanisms to adjust that date if you do it far enough in advance. Now my problem - we go on vacation often and it just so happens that the current vacation would have had a delivery while we were away. Well a month in advance I change the date to the day we are scheduled to come back - Feb 6th, but today I get a notice from UPS it's coming this Friday the first. Needless to say I'm pretty upset that my efforts were for naught and now I have to ask someone to pick the package up from my front door while I'm away. If I knew they were going to deliver the package five days earlier I could have left it as initially scheduled and I would have gotten it yesterday or the day before. It's looking like I won't be able to use subscribe and save in the future as we travel so often.

You can have UPS hold it for you or delay delivery.

 

[zinger1457]

May not work so well with S&S but I've had Amazon Prime deliveries made directly to my vacation address (or local pickup locker) and it's worked out well.

 

[LOL!]

I live in a great neighborhood and see about half my neighbors every couple of days because we all walk our dogs. We are all happy to deal with packages of someone on vacation. Besides, we want our house and dogs looked after, too. A bonus is that we can all humblebrag about our great vacations to each other.

So even if I don't call a neighbor, a package on my doorstep when I am on vacation will get taken care of.

My question: What is so bad about calling your neighbor? Wouldn't you want them to call you if the same thing happened to them?

 

[cathy63]

I don't use Amazon Subscribe & Save, but we did have a delivery problem a few years ago. The solution I came up with was to sign up for UPS My Choice. It's free. You get notified when a package is shipped to you and before delivery, and you can login to add delivery instructions or have items rerouted to a local UPS Store or UPS Access Point.

To answer the "why not call a neighbor" question, in our case, our very kind next door neighbor developed Alzheimer's and he wanted to help us by picking up our packages when we were away, but he lost the ability to differentiate between our being "away on vacation for several days" and "not home right now". He would put our packages in their garage, where his wife would find them at some later time and bring them back. It was embarrassing and stressful for her at a time when she was trying to cope with his diagnosis, plus I didn't know if it would get worse in the future and more things might disappear.

I signed up for all the delivery services' tracking tools so I would know when to expect deliveries. If we're not going to be home on a delivery day, I have UPS packages sent to the UPS Store a few blocks from our home. For FedEx, I can have them held; and for USPS, DHL, Amazon Logistics, I at least know something was delivered and could go next door and ask about it if it disappeared. The advance notifications have spoiled a couple of surprises when people sent us gifts, but that's been a small price to pay for the convenience.

 

[Dare]

I finally got a box at a UPS Store that I use for a delivery address when I'm going to be traveling, or when I'm not 100% certain when a package will arrive. It can receive any type of package (FedEx, USPS, etc. as well as UPS). It's an extra step to go get my packages there, but I don't have to worry about packages sitting on my doorstep when I'm gone, or sitting out in the rain/sleet/snow. I get the smallest size box because they'll just hold anything that won't fit in the box, and they'll email me to let me know I have a package. The cost will probably outweigh your Subscribe & Save discount though, so it probably won't make sense to get one just for that. But I've found having one convenient enough to be worth the cost. (If you do get a box and are a AAA member, be sure to ask for the AAA discount - I think it's 15%)

 

[zinger1457]

I signed up for UPS Choice several years ago and it generally works well but it doesn't work for all deliveries. I had a delivery a couple weeks ago that I tried to use it (tried all the alternate delivery options) and it wouldn't accept the request. It's happened more than once and UPS never gives an explanation why, just states it's not available for that delivery.

 

[DeborahB]

I’m sure it depends where you are, but Whole Foods has lockers for Amazon packages. I could have it delivered there. I don’t know how, exactly.

 

[Alan]

We have S&S for one purchase that would easily fit in an Amazon locker which is our default for all our Amazon purchases but S&S will not deliver to a locker.

May be an Amazon UK restriction only, but we have noticed that at busy times such as the Christmas period that all the lockers in our area fill up so we sometimes have to receive deliveries to the door.

 

[Bir48die]

I live in a great neighborhood and see about half my neighbors every couple of days because we all walk our dogs. We are all happy to deal with packages of someone on vacation. Besides, we want our house and dogs looked after, too. A bonus is that we can all humblebrag about our great vacations to each other.

So even if I don't call a neighbor, a package on my doorstep when I am on vacation will get taken care of.

My question: What is so bad about calling your neighbor? Wouldn't you want them to call you if the same thing happened to them?

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