Friday, June 19, 2009

Postal Ponderings

There I was, hanging out at the local post office with two packages: a yellow box emblazoned with hearts and filled with shoes, socks, and books for a grandchild who lives out of state who is having a birthday; and a more demure bubble-wrap-envelope filled with Skittles, jerky, fruit roll-ups, and underwear for a grandson who is spending his summer working for the US Forest Service.

I was prepared to pay big bucks to send these packages out in the fastest reasonable manner. But what shocked me was that the faster Priority Mail (will get there in 1-2days) was only 47 cents more than the slower Parcel Post (projected arrival in 5-9 days).

What gives?

According to the person stamping my packages, the recent postage price increases (you know--the one where you're now paying $ .44 cents for each letter you send) also increased the rates for Parcel Post but NOT for Priority Mail.

This results in the two rates usually being with $.50 of each other.

This also means that the post office got an additional $.47 from Grace because why bother with Parcel Post at these rates?

Perhaps I should keep quiet about it--I have a feeling the government's response would be to RAISE the amount needed for Priority Mail!

2 comments:

Sharon said...

Grace,
Thank you so much for this post! I had no idea postage went up..I've been sending out office mail at .42. It's been going through (miraculously) but I will definitely change the amounts at work. Now how did I miss that?

Jerry said...

In this environment, there's no insurance that EVERYTHING won't go up. That is crazy about parcel post. You're right. What is the point? I hope complaints don't lead them to increase priority, too!
Jerry