Fedex home delivery is not available to this destination

Not to be a wise-ass, but have you tried UPS?

 

That's probably because the destination is not residential. Try again, click the link to verify the address first. If it's residential, Home Delivery will show up. If it's business, you should have "Ground" as an option.

 

I actually had the same issue myself. I ended up having to choose Express Saver. I've never used Fedex before, but someone generously offered to send me a beer from a brewery I've wanted to try if I sent them a label. I signed up and kind of walked myself through things and was able to create the label. It worked fine since the box has been shipped, but I was wondering why I couldn't choose home delivery. Almost all of my trades I ship UPS, but the other party ships Fedex and I'm pretty sure it's always home delivery to me. Weird.

 

Ouch! UPS then? If it's a trade, did your trade partner warn you?

 

UPS it is. Ask your trade partner what others use to ship to him

 

When you first sign up for FedEx, "Ground" isn't a shipping option you can select online. So if you're not shipping to a residential address you won't be able to do Ground. However, there's an easy remedy - just call up FedEx and ask them to enable Ground on your account, and then you should have the option to select Ground.

EDIT: Just for clarification, Home Delivery and Ground are essentially the same thing. Home Delivery is used to deliver to a residential address, Ground for a non-residential, but in both circumstances the box ships via Ground. Rates are more or less the same for the two.

 

Also, Home delivers on Saturday, but not Tuesday. Ground is vice versa.

 

Home delivers on Tuesday but not Monday

 

D'oh! Brain fart. Thanks.

 

Nope. Home delivery charges an extra surcharge over Ground shipping. All things being equal, Ground is always cheaper than Home but you only get to choose Home for residential addresses (with some lucky exceptions where it is listed as Ground delivery, since there is no Home delivery trucks in the area).

 

Maybe I'm missing something, but why the "Nope" response? You basically said what I did in a different way, perhaps with a bit more precision. Regardless of whether you ship to a residential address via Ground (i.e. by not checking the box that it's a residential address) or via Home Delivery, rates are going to be the same. Even when you don't check the box for residential address, FedEx will add a surcharge for delivery to residential address. So my statement that rates are "more or less the same" is accurate, no? I guess other than for the situation you describe where no Home Delivery trucks are available, but that has yet to happen to me on a shipment.

Plus, the surcharge for Home Delivery/residential delivery is relatively small compared to the scenario OP described, when he was being forced to pick Express shipping. That's the context of my "more or less the same" statement, if that makes sense. A few bucks is immaterial compared to a $20 to $53 increase, as OP described.

 

The "Nope" was for your clarification edit. The fact remains that the Home delivery residential surcharge has increased from $3.10+ to $3.25+ per package (does not apply if the system classifies the address as a Ground, meaning not a Home delivery address). Add the Home fuel surcharge to the total too. A small package from NY to NJ (close distance) would be around $8.00 + $3.25 + $0.35. A little more than "more or less the same" for the percentage increase for the two surcharges respectively. The numbers go up with the zone distances. The system determines whether the address is "Ground" delivery or "Home" delivery and you can verify the estimated total cost of shipping using the quote function before printing the label. Otherwise, I agree with your other statements. Cheers.

 

I had this same issue creep up on Tuesday. I was having difficulty with my account so I created a new one. Once I created the new one I ended getting the same error message as above despite the fact that it was an address I've shipped to on multiple occasions. I ended up calling customer service in my frustration and was told there's a 24 hour holding period when you set up a new account. For the 24 hour period ground is not an available option. I wasn't given a reason as to why this is policy (it makes no sense to me). I also wasn't able to find anything on their website that outlines this policy. Naturally most people who create accounts are trying to ship something right then and there so it seems slimy to me to give an error message in the hope of getting them to pick the more expensive service. I hope this helps!