Favorite Freight Forwarders?

[Sam Wilson]

LiCR,

I've been using Box Correos for many, many years now, mainly because they are cheap ($7 / 1/2kg, $10.75 / 1kg) and they deliver to my front gate in rural Costa Rica - not in that order...  But they now are only delivering up on our volcano twice a week and so it seems like a good time to review options...

Which freight forwarders / customs agents are you guys using and how do you like them?  How do they stack up?

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Sam, in outback Guanacaste.

[Joe Harrison]

Since I live in the "inback" (well, sort of) we probably have different carriers.  I like Liberty, but I doubt they would want to visit you.  Others I have used are Aeropost and Jet Box.  They may have broader coverage.  joe

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[Sam Wilson]

Hi Joe,

Yes, it does seem that only Box Correos will deliver (without extra cost) to my front gate.  For the rest I would have to go to Liberia for pickup (about 1 hour away) or worse.  I have used Aeropost in the past for documents and they did a good job.  Their costs were just slightly higher than Box Correos for packages and cheaper for documents.  Box Correos doesn't seem to know how to handle documents very well and Aeropost does.  JetBox is an option in Liberia, but their flete and manejo always seem to be about double what Box Correos charges.  Here's an example using their respective calculators for a $20 package of shoes weighing 1 lb.

JetBox: $23.12 for Transporte y Manejo

Box Correos: $10.10 for Transporte y Manejo

Aeropost: $17.10 for Transporte y Manejo y extras...

Looks like we'll just have to live with deliveries twice a week.  If I went to Liberia more often then maybe I'd use Aeropost more...

It is interesting how they all guessed differently at what 29% import tax on shoes would come up to. Aeropost guessed $6.53, JetBox $8.79, and Box Correos $10.11.  I get that aduanas is based upon CIF (Cost + Insurance + Freight) but still the cheapest transport guessed the highest tax.

I thought there was some new (or previously unknown to me,) freight forwarder service operating out of Liberia now, but I do not remember their name and I have yet to be able to find them again after I originally stumbled across them.  Still, delivery to my front gate is pretty darn convenient even if it is only twice a week...  Hopefully it continues.  We already lost our nearest post office in Bagaces (25 km away.) 

Thanks!

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Sam

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[gene]

box seems to be gentle with my packages ..never had damage....i use them a lot....as for documents....i made up an invoice generally used for documents with 2 dollar value....works fine....once took 2 months to get credit card ...i blame my brother....he used regular envelope.  instead of package....i feel it fell in yhe crack somewhere...eventually they got it here..  living here hss taught patience!!!

lol

Sent from my Galaxy

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