Royal Mail Special Delivery Guarantee suspended for Christmas Eve

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Royal Mail have suspended the Special Delivery Guarantee for items due to arrive on Christmas Eve. With London, the South East and East of England plunged into Tier 4, Royal Mail feel that they can no longer promise that items posted on the 23rd can be delivered on Christmas Eve.

The Special Delivery Guarantee remains in place for items shipped on the 22nd of December and so this is a warning to post early for Christmas if you want gifts sped across the country to friends and family who can no longer be with you over the Christmas period. For businesses, make sure that if you offer Special Delivery as an option that your messaging warns buyers that purchases shipping on the 23rd may not arrive before Christmas.

“In light of the changing coronavirus restrictions announced on Saturday 19th December 2020, we have made the difficult decision to make the following changes to our timed guarantees for our Special Delivery by 9am and 1pm services

– For Special Delivery Guaranteed by 9.00am and Special Delivery Guaranteed by 1.00pm items posted on Wednesday 23rd December we are suspending our delivery guarantee.

– While we cannot currently provide a guarantee that items posted on Wednesday 23rd December will arrive prior to Christmas due to the impact of the new coronavirus restrictions, we can assure you that we will be endeavouring to deliver all items as quickly as possible. We know how important this is.

– Special Delivery Guaranteed by 9.00am and Special Delivery Guaranteed by 1.00pm items posted up to and including Tuesday 22nd December remain unchanged.”
– Royal Mail

7 Responses

  1. With this year been as bad as it has with lockdowns, I would have hoped people would have thought on and bought early.

    Well done Royal mail. A service this year that has seen more people getting back in touch with a hand written Christmas card. Much appreciated by those on there own.

  2. My local Post Mistress told me that the parcel I sent today (22nd) by Special Delivery would not have the delivery guarantee. She seems to be full of incorrect information – maybe a bit more training and a little less guessing would be useful.
    I am still grumpy because of all the refunds I have had to issue for goods not arriving on time – 14 days seems about average these days. I switched to Hermes on the higher value parcels, which was going well until I noticed that they have not collected from the Parcelshop for 3 days – more unhappy customers.
    I have now closed everything down to avoid paying out more money than is coming in.

  3. My local Post Mistress told me that the parcel I sent today (22nd) by Special Delivery would not have the delivery guarantee. She seems to be full of incorrect information – maybe a bit more training and a little less guessing would be useful.
    I am still grumpy because of all the refunds I have had to issue for goods not arriving on time – 14 days seems about average these days. I switched to Hermes on the higher value parcels, which was going well until I noticed that they have not collected from the Parcelshop for 3 days – more unhappy customers.
    I have now closed everything down to avoid paying out more money than is coming in.

  4. Waiting on a special delivery posted on the 21st still sitting at the original Post office

  5. Well to be honest since I live in London I haven’t seen royal mail for two weeks straight so I don’t know if they are still.working in London since there hasn’t been any post from them that I’m.wating on now so to be honest I was scared to buy anything for Christmas since royal mail stop delivering things for two week I bought a blu ray preoder I only got half my parcel and I didn’t get the other half it what I was supposed to get with the preoder it was sent the 8th of December I only got the blu ray but the rest of the order I can’t tell what happen to my order that I purchased from warner bros shop

  6. My hermes have been outstanding ,!!!
    same country ?
    same Christmas ?
    same pandemic ?
    Ups very good
    Dpd excellent as normal

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