"Printed Papers" v. "Letter" - airmail to EU

[Stratus987]

Hi folks,

well.. colour me so confused. I've just spent the last 2.5 hours trying to figure out just what constitutes a "letter" and what doesn't. I'm hoping people here can help me or direct me to some official royal mail page where it will tell me.

Here's the deal. I'm with a tiny charity and each year we send out an A5 letter to all our folks with a little newsletter inside of it . The UK addresses we just put a 2nd class stamp on. For the dozen or so in Europe, I used to send them out with a european letter stamp. but Yesterday I was told at my Post Office that because my 55g A5 envelopes contained a newsletter, that they were "printed papers" and not just letters. and instead of £1.66 I would have to pay £2.70 for each of the 15 letters to Europe.

I was surprised, but of course, there was a queue, so I just paid up and kept the receipt. But now when I look online I see the "Royal Mail Guide to International Letters" which on page 8 says " This service can be used to send any personalised letters, statements, invoices, contracts etc as well as non-personalised direct mail, catalogues and magazines with enclosures up to the maximum size weight and thickness."

And when I rang royal mail, they directed me to The Post Office .. who then directed me back to Royal Mail. And each person had their "opinion" but nobody seemed to know what the rules were?

Can anyone here advise me?

Very kind regards
St.

[FairyFoot]

hmm, I didn't know about that guide.... I had been sending out personal letters with low value goodies as airmail letter (under 100g.... all have arrived), but the thickness exceeded the maximum (although the goodies can be squished!) as stated in the guide (however, large letters internally go up to 25mm thick)... Ah, says something different on the personal customers airmail faq - no maximum thickness mentioned in letter/paxcket, and from the posting leaflet thing, under sending items abroad, letters up to 100g... (I wonder what a 99g letter+envelope looks like, how thick/large would that be?)..

[barrowc]

The actual "rules" are in the current version of the Successor Postal Services Company Overseas Letter Post Scheme 2001 which you can find at http://www.royalmail.com/customer-servi ... conditions