What is Purolator’s 2024 Christmas time holiday schedule?

What is Purolator’s 2024 Christmas time holiday schedule?

Purolator observes Christmas and Boxing Day as well as New Year’s Day as holidays, and therefore neither picks up nor delivers parcels on those days. However, depending on a parcel’s destination, Purolator has also established a list of Send-by Dates to guarantee an arrival by December 24. This blog provides details of those dates, explains some of the added surcharges associated with the heavier shipping season, and introduces the Canadian shipping broker Secureship, who can help you significantly reduce your shipping costs at any time of the year.

Table of Contents

• Purolator’s Send-by Dates
• Purolator’s Seasonal Surcharges
• Savings with Secureship
• Conclusion

Purolator’s Send-by Dates

Send-by dates vary depending on the destination country and its distance from Canada. Outlined below are the pertinent dates to ensure the delivery of a parcel by December 24; however, because of capricious weather events in North America at this time of year, it is always recommended to ship earlier than the deadline.

Send-by Dates (for a Dec. 24 arrival)	Destinations
December 11	Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East
December 13	USA via ground services
December 17	East Asia, including China, Japan, and Thailand
December 18	Australia, Caribbean, Mexico, South and Central America, Western Europe
December 23	Canada and next-day delivery to the USA (where available)

Purolator’s Seasonal Surcharges

Parcels that require special handling incur an extra cost year round, and increased holiday volumes simply add to those fees.

Extra seasonal surcharges are applied from November 3, 2024 until January 18, 2025. As you can see, some of the charges are small, while others can be quite large:

Package Service Required	Surcharge (CAD)/piece
Additional handling (e.g. unboxed items)	$6
Oversized (e.g. heavier than 23 kg)	$6
Residential heavyweight (weighing from 32 kg - 68 kg)	$6
Large package (a girth* measurement from 330 cm - 419 cm)	$50
Over maximum limit (longer than 274 cm; heavier than 68 kg)	$450

*Girth = 2(W + H) – assuming width is smaller than length

Savings with Secureship

For 17 years, Secureship has helped thousands of Canadians substantially lower their shipping costs. Combined with an easy-to-use website and bulk buying agreements with Purolator, UPS, and FedEx, Secureship can quickly find you a selection of shipping options that will suit your budget. And those savings could be upwards of 50%; however, the quicker you want your parcel delivered, the more it will cost.

Secureship’s Learning Centre for Shippers also offers advice on other ways of saving money and time when shipping. We have produced more than a dozen articles on various topics covering dimensional weight, insurance, preventing package loss or damage, and value-added services.

Conclusion

Purolator’s Christmas time holiday schedule breaks its services totally for three days only: December 25, 26 and January 1. But be advised, because of long distances to some parts of the world, Purolator has published a list of Send-by Dates to ensure delivery by Christmas Eve. And as the holiday shipping season is extra busy, shipping rates are much higher as are the surcharge fees for especially big or heavy packages and those requiring additional services.

However, there is some positive news at this particularly expensive time of year – Secureship’s shipping calculator, an intuitive on-line tool that could save you up to half of your shipping costs with Purolator, FedEx, and UPS. And more good news: Secureship works not only during the holiday season, but year round finding you savings while maintaining a series of information articles that help you reduce shipping costs in lesser known ways.