If you're like me and absolutely refuse to acknowledge any kind of holiday season items before Thanksgiving, you know there's an exception to that rule: mailing items to our troops stationed overseas. The holiday-related mail effort takes some special, long term planning -- especially if you're hoping to use the cheaper, slow shipping option.
Getting items overseas to an APO or FPO location takes some serious pre-planning. Fortunately every year around this time the military releases a handy list of "ship by" dates to help us out. And don't trust this stuff to memory. If you're like me you have trouble during deployment remembering what day of the week it is, this is a moment to add an alert to your smart phone for the week before the drop-dead date.
The 2015 holiday military mail deadlines are ....
For mail addressed to/from:
APO/FPO/DPO AE zips 090-098 (except 093); AA zips 340; AP zips 962-966
* Priority Express Mail Military Service: Dec. 17
* First-Class and Priority Mail (letters/cards and packages): Dec. 10
* Space Available Mail: Nov. 26
* Standard Post Mail: Nov. 8
APO/FPO/DPO AE ZIP 093
* Priority Express Mail Military Service: N/A
* First-Class and Priority Mail (letters/cards and packages): Dec. 3
* Space Available Mail: Nov. 26
* Standard Post Mail: Nov. 8
Domestic Mail (any U.S. address that is not an APO/FPO)
* First-Class Mail: Dec. 20
* Priority Mail: Dec. 20
* Priority Express Mail: Dec. 23
International First-Class Packages and Priority Mail headed to Africa, Central and South America: no later than Dec. 2.
International First-Class Packages and Priority Mail headed to to Asia/Pacific Rim, Australia/New Zealand, Canada;, Caribbean, Mexico, Europe and the Middle East: no later than Dec. 9.
