Many Postcrossing users exchange postcards between them besides exchanging the official Postcrossing ones. We call them direct swaps. They are exchanges organized by the Postcrossing users themselves and are not tracked by the system and hence not have Postcard IDs.

To help users know if another member is available for private swaps or not, we allow users to configure that on their account. This way, users who are interested in doing direct swaps are easier to find and users who do not wish to participate can clearly state that too.