Regular forwarding vs premium?

[Scuba]

DH and I are going to the USVI's for about 3 months. We don't want to impose on friends or neighbors so we are considering USPS forwarding. The cheap option ($1) is to temporarily forward our mail piece by piece. The expensive option ($270) is to have USPS bundle our mail and send it in a Priority Mail package once a week. Anyone used either of these options? Thanks!

 

[harley]

I'm not sure if it's the same thing, but what I do is a temporary change of address. I think there's a $1 charge for that. It works great. I tend to start the forwarding a week ahead of leaving, with a hold mail at the other end. This makes sure nothing gets left in your mailbox at home. Then when the hold expires, the week's worth of mail gets delivered to you, and from then on you get your mail (minus junk mail) daily. Then, a week before going home, I end the temporary change of address, and put a hold on the mail at home, ensuring there's nothing left behind at the vacation place. Then when you get home, the hold ends and everything is back on schedule. It's all very easy to manage on usps.com.

The only issue I see is putting the hold on the mail in VI. I'm not sure if you can only hold mail in your name or not, and if you don't own the property at the far end, the hold mail might impact whoever owns the place. But no matter what, I'd never pay that much just to have mail forwarded. 95% of mine is worthless anyway.

 

[audreyh1]

WE do temporary address change.

 

[Starsky]

You could get a PO box at The UPS Store and have them forward your mail. The nice thing about this is that you can specify which mail to forward, how often, how fast you get it, and where you want it to go (which can change too). They usually charge a PO Box rental fee and the cost for shipping your mail.

It sounds like it could be less than the Post Office will charge, for a lot more flexibility. (Disclaimer: I used to work for UPS.)

 

[eastnortheast]

My parents did the temporary change of address when they first started started spending winters in the south. They found that the forwarding service was very slow - time sensitive material would sometimes arrive late.

Things may have changed as this was 10+ years ago.

 

[harley]

There's definitely a time delay, but not significant in my experience. Now, any mail is slow in FL, they just have a really crappy mail system, and we have the grouchiest mail carrier I've ever seen. But I usually get my forwarded mail within two to three days of when I would have received it up north.

 

[pb4uski]

In today's mail in Sarasota I received some that were relayed from my home PO in Vermont on 2/10... so it took about a week for them to arrive... but it is free and mostly stuff that is useless or not time sensitive.

 

[audreyh1]

I actually have a mail service that I forwarded to if we're traveling for a long time >>30 days. Then I call them when I want accumulated mail sent to me wherever I am. This also allows me to put things on hold for a longer period if I'm out of the country.

Yes, forwarded mail is delayed. But otherwise works well. I try not to deal with any time sensitive stuff via mail but track all accounts online.

 

[45th Birthday]

We have done both. As mentioned, the temporary forwarding option will have delays, sometimes significant. The premium forwarding will result in ALL your mail, including junk, being forwarded to you. Sometimes this has been a day or so late, and once they obviously lost the box for a week, but delays depend on the quality of the mail service at your original and temporary addresses, so you will have to judge.