Worldcon Trip Day 43: You Can't Get There From Here

[kevin_standlee]

As most of you who follow me know, I am an engineer for an international logistics-management company. Therefore, it gets me really annoyed when I cannot figure out a solution to what seems like a relatively simple "retail" logistics issue, and that is what happened today.

My luggage coming to the UK was right up against the weight limit of 23 kg. As it happens, I somehow have a 2 bag allowance going back, so I can take more stuff, but I had hoped to ship the heavier things separately, mailing about 10 kg of things back home. I've done this before, after the Helsinki, Dublin, and 2005 Glasgow Worldcons.

I prepared a box that contained my 2002 Hugo Award trophy (I brought it to Glasgow as a favor to the Hugo Award History exhibit), a book that I bought, the binder in which I had the 2024 WSFS Business Meeting agenda and my notes, Lisa's video recording unit and the associated cables (the batteries have to go with me in hand-carried luggage), and the head from her tripod (the tripod itself is too big to easily fit in most boxes, but does fit in my larger bag. This came to 10.1 kg, almost half of the weight that I'd brought with me.

I took this box to a local post office. They were horrified at the thought of sending something that heavy by mail and essentially told me that It Could Not Be Done.

Attempting to do this online did produce a possible shipment costing more than £110. I might still have done that just to make it easier to carry and not force me into using that second-checked-bag allowance. But the online booking system wanted things itemized for customs purposes, and after spending way too much time trying to figure out how to classify things, I gave up.

Even if I didn't have the second-checked-bag allowance on my return trip, it would be less expensive to pay for a second bag to carry the excess baggage, all of which are my personal effect and nearly all of which I brought with me than to deal with all of this nonsense. From looking at the website, I conclude that the Royal Mail does not actually want to deal with things like shipping packages.

All that is left now is to divide my things between the two bags: one is large and hard-sided, while the other is smaller and soft-sided (my WFC 2021 tote bag). Unfortunately, it is safer to pack the larger, heavier things in the larger bag, which risks overloading it. I'll figure it out eventually.

And yes, I know the likelihood of that rocket-shaped trophy attracting the attention of Security is pretty high. I expect it did happen in Iceland. But it's wrapped in bubble wrap with a label around it in large letters saying what it is and even including a pointer to the Hugo Awards website, so I think the most that will happen is that they'll look at it and determine that it's just a big hunk of chrome-plated zinc.

Comments

[delosharriman]

Didn't Royal Mail have a computer problem which made it impossible to send international parcels from post offices? Last I heard, they weren't even trying to fix it, just saying use the on-line form. But I'm sorry to tell you, if you've tried to send anything overseas by USPS lately, they're charging $100+ for a 10 kg parcel too.

[lindadee]

I'm so glad I didn't try to ship anything home. And while I had two-free checked bags on the way home, I was more restricted flying from Glasgow to Amsterdam. When I had to buy a small suitcase for the clothing I had to purchase when my luggage didn't arrive with me in London, I used that as my overhead component and my small backpack as my under the seat allowance. (And yes, I made sure the small suitcase met KLM's restrictions.) So, even though going home, I had the two-free checked bag allowance, I hadn't really bought too much else. This time I checked both suitcases. British Air upgraded me to business class with a sleeper compartment (something I would never pay for). It was the height of luxury, but almost everything else had to go in the overhead compartment because with the bed open, there was no storage. Not that I minded. The only "bad" thing about this flight was I lost one of my hearing aids. Luckily, it was still under warranty, so I'm awaiting a call any day now that the replacement has come in. (This was an amazing trip, but it also kept flip-flopping between great and miserable since I also managed to come down with Covid while at Eurocon. Ask me about finding Paxlovid in the Netherlands sometime.)

[kevin_standlee]

Sympathies about the COVID and envy about the sleeper seat.

I somehow managed to avoid COVID despite being in close proximity to you, Alex Acks, and John Pomeranz during those marathon Business Meetings.

For my trip home on United points, I paid the up-charge for an Economy Plus seat, and then saw that in exchange for taking a later flight (thus incurring a 5h30m layover at DEN), I could get a cheap first-class upgrade for the final leg home. What condition I will be in when I get to Reno at 2030 PDT on Sunday, goodness only knows, especially because I then need to get a taxi to the Amtrak station (my van is parked in the garage across the street) and then drive home.

[a_cubed]

I used to send people small items from Japan as presents, things like candy, small tchotchkes and similar. I've given up on that now. It now costs at least three times the cost of the items in order to send them. I had the bright idea a little while ago that I should send my UK tax return (*) from Belgium to the UK instead of from Japan since I was going to be in Belgium just as I had finished it. It shold be cheaper just going across the Channel, though I... erroneously. It was more expensive to send an A4 document from Belgium to the UK than from Japan!

(*) When I lived in the UK I used to be able to do my taxes online. Since moving to Japan I've not been able to do so because their web based system has a f*cked up interface to their mainframe system that can't process non-UK addresses as the registered address. They flat out refuse to fix it, saying there are other options (pay someone based in the UK to do my taxes or buy and use proprietary software that only runs on Windows).

[sbisson]

You might want to try parcel2go.com; it’s a decent aggregator site for UK parcel delivery sites and will get you the best price with one query.