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Hola fellow Gringos and Gringas,
What has been your experience with recieving mail in CR using companies that deal in this business. Please be as candid as possible because we recently read a letter to the editor in the Tico Times whereas a person was not thrilled about a company called Aerocasillas. Your feed back is much apprciated!!.
Dunno what was written in the Tico Times, but our experience with Aerocasillas has been very good. We started four years ago with another company which we found to be very, very expensive and whose service turned out to be not better than Aerocasillas. And we had to venture into the San Jose area to pick up our mail. Aerocasillas’ service has been as good or better, and they have offices in San Ramon, Grecia (where we live) and elsewhere. I see no reason to change.
We have used Aerocasillas for the last 5 months…..our opinion….they are just o.k
It still takes 2-3 weeks to get a letter to the US…..and that’s using their Express
Priority service. Their charges seem fair…. .80 for an incoming letter.
Maybe this is the norm.
If anybody knows of a better service at a fair price let us know.Bob
Los Angeles SurAll my incoming letters from Aerocasillas are $1.50, picked up in Grecia also. David?
Mail can be refused and credit given. Delivery service is good but customer service by phone at the office in Escazu is poor. Phones not answered or voice mails full!We have used Aerocasillas for over 4 years now and are satisfied. We only use it for letters from the States that we have to have a US mailing address for. All of our other mail comes directly to our Costa Rica P.O. Box and we have yet to have a problem getting a letter or package. We would never use Aerocasillas for a package, they are way too expensive for that. We also pay $1.50 per letter received in the Herradura office. I don’t know of a better service, but they have at least been adequate for what we need.
bobr, we use the Costa Rican Correo for outgoing letters to the U.S. It’s actually cheaper to send a letter from here to anyplace in the States than it is to use the U.S. Postal Service to send domestic mail within the country. Service is hardly overnight, but it’s not so slow as to be a problem.
I’ve also sent a couple of packages to the U.S. via the Correo. Again, delivery in the U.S. was hardly immediate, but the packages did get there, and the price was very reasonable.
Too, you can send correspondence (at least) to the U.S. via the Correo using either expedited (much faster) delivery or certified (secure) mail. Certified is laughably cheap; expedited is not.
We’ve recently had an experience with receiving a package here in Costa Rica that I’d like to share.
If you’re an Aerocasillas customer, they give you the option to “Pre-Alert” incoming packages. You must give them the tracking number, carrier, shipper, value and (this is important) the contents. Pre-Alerting is supposed to speed up the process and it may. Well, recently I ordered four Souper-size chocolate Nylabone dog chew toys via ebay and Pre-Alerted the package on Aerocasillas’ website listing the contents as “dog toys”.
That was a mistake!
Turns out that anything that’s animal-related involves getting an import license from MINAE which is the Ministry of Agriculture and the Environment. So not only is Customs involved but you must supply MINAE with a copy of your passport, your residency cedula, a statement of your physical address, and the invoice for the product. Then, you have to go to MINAE in Heredia in person and apply for the import license! I should live so long. This applies to anything (anything!) including dog toys, collars and leashes . . . anything!
So, buyer beware! If you’re not certain if something you want to order from the States will need some special attention, it’s better not to “Pre-Alert” it. Let Aerocasillas open it in Miami, list whatever contents they wish, and avoid the hassles.
This applies, too, to medications you may order from the U.S. In April I ordered a bunch of refills and had a huge hassle getting them through. Individual prescriptions, however, sail right through. So order in modest quantities. And don’t Pre-Alert.
As for the Nylabones, I’ve abandoned the four I initially ordered and ordered a couple more (not Pre-Alerted, I assure you). For the time being, the dog’ll just have to chew on the cats.
Here’s a frustrating little update on shipping merchandise into Costa Rica . . .
I previously wrote about my problems getting four Nylabone dog chew toys into Costa Rica and past Customs and Minae. Well, yesterday I picked up the second shipment of two Nylabones. I did not PreAlert them but Aerocasillas opened the box and correctly listed them as dog toys anyway. This shipment of two Nylabones wasn’t delayed a minute!
When my wife asked the young man in the Grecia Aerocasillas office about it, he explained that any package that weighs less than a kilogram (that is, less than 1.000kg) goes through without delay or further processing. Turns out, my first shipment of four Nylabones weighed (are you ready??) 1.066kg! That’s right. It was 0.066kg over the limit and got hung up.
I had a similar experience last April when I ordered a bunch of medications from our mail-in pharmacy, again, all in one shipment. Customs and the Ministry of Health had a field day making me jump through bureaucratic hoops. I’ve subsequently ordered the same meds, but one at a time, and had no delays or inquiries whatsoever.
So I think there’s a lesson here: If you’re ordering anything that might attract the attention of Customs, the Ministry of Health, Minae, or any other government bureaucracy, order it in small quantities and ask the shipper to minimize the packaging. If my Nylabone shipper had used a little less tape, our house would be littered with Nylabones today.
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