How is this even possible?

[C2019]

This is not a complaint, but I’ve no idea how this happened.

I’ve been offering my customers in the USA different postage options and I always send “international tracked” which is around £14. One customer asked if I could get a cheaper price so I went the lowest “economy” option without any tracking at all which cost £6.60.
I’ve heard this service can take months to arrive

I’ve sent 2 items to the same customer in the US so I can easily compare services.
The international TRACKED service took 16 days to arrive, the untracked, bog standard cheap option……3 days……3 days!

I know this because she messaged me saying it arrived. So how can an option that’s 2x the price take 5 x longer than the economy option? Isn’t it supposed to be the opposite ?

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Sometimes it's cheaper for the business to send items overseas by a cheaper service by the same method as a more expensive one. Also with it going to America, it's possible that the USPS transferred it to the other service rather than Royal Mail as they have a different way of processing items through customs.

Though you were fortunate in this case its not something I would rely on in the future. As to the late delivery - USPS has been stating to the USA government that they are struggling at the moment (a bit like RM is as well) so that could have caused the delay on the faster one.

[Business15]

Do you get a barcode number on the Untracked Royal Mail USA parcel?

If so you may be able to track it.

[SpacePhoenix]

I think sometimes if there's spare capacity on the plane taking the airmail stuff over, they might send suitable surface mail along with the airmail to make full use of the airmail capacity