Shipping fees/methods/speed

[ambr0zie]

I remember I had issues with Belgian post 2 times - serious delays, similar conditions - BP claimed it reached my country but this was not reflected on the tracking. Eventually I received both the parcels and I think the issue was on my country's postal service end. 

I am sure you know this, but the only thing you can do is ask Bucephalus to chase BP (as far as I know, you, as a receiver, cannot ask for updates from US postal system). 

[Heliodromus]

7 hours ago, Roman Collector said:

However, the Belgian postal service claims it has arrived in the US, but the US Postal Service says it has yet to receive the package from the Belgian postal service.

Unfortunately the hand-off isn't directly from overseas post office to USPS, but via US customs, which is probably where your package is - this is where most delays are. The USPS only starts to track mail once they receive it from customs, although sometimes there'll be a scan indicating that the mail was received by customs, even if not processed and handed off to the USPS. If the Belgian post office says it has arrived in the US, then I'm sure it has, even if there is no inbound into customs scan acknowledging it.

To make things worse, not all tracked mail works the same... Depending on country of origin and exact mail service used, mail may only be tracked within country of origin, and not withing the US, so you never know exactly what to expect. For example, it used to be that if someone in Spain used their default international registered mail service then it would be tracked in the US (as well as in Spain), but a few years ago that changed (due to the US) and now is only tracked within Spain... There is also a different Spanish mail service, that costs more, that is tracked within the US, but many people, including Spanish post office workers, have never heard of it.

[Heliodromus]

5 hours ago, ambr0zie said:

as far as I know, you, as a receiver, cannot ask for updates from US postal system

You can always, regardless of what they say, file a missing mail complaint, which does seem to occasionally cause things to be shaken loose within the system.

[Heliodromus]

For international mail tracking, while you can first use the foreign mail service's tracking system to track until it leaves that country, then use the USPS's tracking site once it arrives, a far more convenient way is to use one of these two tracking sites that will do it all for you.

https://parcelsapp.com/

https://www.17track.net/en