Getting Mail Forwarded to USPS Box in Honolulu (apartment, rental)

[psberg]

My husband and I are flying to Honolulu on June 12, probably on a permanent basis. We are from Honolulu and have spent the last 40 years on the mainland--in DC, the Bay Area, and Seattle. We go to Hawaii at least once a year.

We have had the darndest time trying to figure out how to get our mail forwarded from Seattle to Honolulu. I should mention that we sold our house in March, set up a temporary housing situation with my husband's brother, then flew off to Europe for a couple of months. We returned 2 weeks ago and are in the process of finalizing our move. However...we are not going to move our entire household stuff. It is in storage and will not be moved until we have found a house to buy in Honolulu. Let's just say there's a ton of stuff and it would be costly to move everything twice. Our storage situation could last for 2 months or 2 years.

We came upon the idea of opening a PO box in Waikiki, which is close to where we expect to find a rental apartment, then submitting a change of address so that the forwarded mail would be in the PO box when we arrived. So I did an online application ($58 for a 3 month rental of a size 2 box) and went to the local post office to have the application stamped--you need to provide a picture i.d. and a non-picture i.d. with proof of your current address. Since we are only at a temporary address and did not bother to change our driver's license addresses, we used our passports, which do not include an address. As for the non-picture i.d., we used our auto insurance card, which had been updated to the temporary address when we dropped our HO insurance which also covered auto.

Ok so far. We have been speaking with a customer service rep in Honolulu (don't bother calling the post office) and have finally received our PO box number. The problem is, we cannot get the keys when we show up in Waikiki until we provide proof of a current Hawaiian address. Now why in the world would we rent a PO box if we already had a current Hawaiian address that could receive mail? (yeah, I know people rent PO boxes for non-legit reasons...)

We spoke to someone in the Seattle post office, and were told there were other options, but they each have problems. First--submit a "hold mail" notice for up to 30 days, with a notation stating pending receipt of a change of address. Once they get that, they will forward all the held mail to our new address. Problem: they will hold ALL mail, including mail addressed to my husband's brother. So it won't work.

The second option was for his brother to hold all the mail himself. Then once we notified him of our new address, he would take the mail to the USPS and they would forward all the mail to us in Honolulu. That could work, but my husband does not want to do this.

So I am wondering if anyone out there has any suggestions on how to handle our mail situation. We do get a lot of mail, but I have been using e-delivery as much as possible for various accounts.

[whtviper1]

Originally Posted by psberg

The problem is, we cannot get the keys when we show up in Waikiki until we provide proof of a current Hawaiian address.

That is incorrect.

You don't have to physically live in Hawaii or be a resident to have a Hawaii PO Box from the post office.

You do have to prove your physical address wherever that is. The 2 forms of id that were sufficient at the local post office are sufficient to show at the Hawaii post office to get your keys as long as your physical address has not changed.

[psberg]

Really, hmm...that's not the impression I got from the USPS clerk. I will email her and confirm.

Thanks for the response.

[Cajala]

A little late but joining in case you still need it or someone else runs into it.

I agree with whtviper1. I got a box using a mainland physical address and showed my out-of-state driver's license to pick up the keys. Just use the online PO Box feature to pay and sign up, skip calling them. Show up in person at your Post Office of choice and no worries from there. Print out the online confirmation with matching ID and you are all set. They did not check if I had put in a change of address on the physical address and just needed something to check a box in their system as far as I could tell.

[psberg]

I got a message from the customer service rep in Honolulu earlier this week. She confirmed that a local Honolulu address would have to be shown in order to get the keys. This is what she apparently was told by the people at the Waikiki Saratoga Road station.

We decided not to get the keys and cancelled our application. USPS credited the funds back to our credit card almost immediately, to my surprise. If you don’t pick up the keys, you can cancel for a full refund.

Back to the i.d. issue. I did talk to someone on the USPS technical assistance line and he confirmed that qualifications are verified at the time of the application, not at the time you pick up the keys. So the info I got from the Honolulu CS rep was incorrect.

We ended up renting a condo in Kakaako (96814 vs 96815 zip code). So as it turned out, we couldn’t have
made much use of the PO box in Waikiki.