Quickest way to post to US?

[LolaBeltran]

I have sent two letters to the US this past year via EMS from the Hua Hin Postoffice. Apart from being insanely expensive, neither met with success.

The first still has not arrived after seven months now. The second took three weeks to finally arrive at its destination, though I was treated to a map of its journey via the Track and Trace.

In BOTH cases the Track and Trace ended when the letter left Thai shores and ( supposedly) reached the US (isnt there some sort of reciprocal arrangement for tracking and delivery between the two postal services?)

Anyway, now needing to send another important letter to US and loath to trust the Thai postal system EMS.

So suggestions please for a service that is fast and secure.
Thanks so much

[PeteC]

The only thing I can think of is one of the international couriers, such as DHL, UPS or Fedex. They all have offices in Thailand but the cost may be more than what you experienced with EMS.

[PeteC]

Note, a quick search indicates that of the three, only DHL has an office/agents in Hua Hin.

[Big Boy]

In BOTH cases the Track and Trace ended when the letter left Thai shores and ( supposedly) reached the US (isnt there some sort of reciprocal arrangement for tracking and delivery between the two postal services?)

OK, not the US, but when tracking packages to the UK, when the package leaves Thailand, I simply put the tracking number into the UK postal system's tracking service. It works well.

[handdrummer]

The postal service in the US has gone to the dogs. What used to take 3 days now takes a week or more to reach its destination.

All the letters that I've sent to the US, eventually reach their destination but always take at least 3 weeks. It's the same for letters and parcels from the US to Thailand. Even worse than the UK. The last parcel I ordered from England took 6 weeks to arrive.

I think that the US postal service will eventually be replaced by private servers.

[HHTel]

The times I've used EMS to and from the UK (UK to Thailand obviously starts with Royal Mail), I've always found delivery very swift from 4 days to the longest being 10 days. Admittedly they've always been small packages.

And as BB states, tracking works EMS to Royal Mail and vice versa. I'm surprised tracking between here and the US doesn't have a similar arrangement.

[hhinner]

I've sent registered letters to the US (last one a year ago) and found tracking to be quite good. The main problem is the length of time between movements within the US at various USPS offices (UK is quite bad at the moment too). Similar to Royal Mail you can track on the USPS system. You can set up e-mail notifications on the USPS system so that when your item arrives at another office you'll get an e-mail.

[LolaBeltran]

Thanks for the suggestions! Will check out DHS and UPS. They cant be more expensive than the 1500 baht I paid for EMS! And I never thought to track the first letter on USPS. Found that letter currently in Texas waiting for delivery since May. So the blame is not on the Thai post but the US post.