Are we all ready for the annual Royal Mail melt down?

Touch wood I've not had any issues in the past...ironically, I was just writing out some of my cards earlier on today for friends who live overseas - I plan to mail them probably next weekend if not before, hopefully before queues are too long at the post office. I was wondering if I can use the royal mail online postage system for mailing basic small cards to the US - I have money in my account there and it'd mean I'd not have to go to the post office and queue up but then when you pay online for postage to outside the EU it insists on you downloading, signing & attaching a customs form? there's not enough room on a basic card envelope for that(!) hmph...so might end up going to the post office after all if its too complicated to pay for it online...

I think so, yeah...but the last time I mailed a basic card to the US I wasn't asked to fill out a customs form, so I'm hoping I won't need to print it off if I state that its a small card under 100g or some such. I used to pay for postage via PayPal but it kept crashing when I got to the stage where it said I had to download and print off the customs declaration I doubt there'd be room on a small envelope to display the main address label and print off a customs declaration, since on the royal mail site the smallest address label you can opt for is 1/4 a sheet of A4...blah de blah...im a geek lol. The site was down last I checked, so I'll have to have another look next week...

You don't need a customs form for cards (as long as it's just a card) and yes you can just pay for postage online. As long as you've got a good pair of scales and there's nothing raised on the card then you don't need to worry about it being large letter/package.

Make sure you have a return address on it too.

D

Thats what I hoped as I'm sure I didn't have to do that last time at the post office but im just not sure if the website would know that, to not force me to download and print it or whatever but hopefully this should be a better way of doing it - though it'll cost me a little in ink and paper with my printer but its still more convenient than queuing for 10-20 minutes I think! thank you!

I'm posting my friend's pressys off to her soon (to Wales)... then all the others i'm actually taking to Newcastle for my Mum to give out (be lost without my Mum) LOL!!

So i'm not really relying on it too much this year. Not too sure i'm sending X-Mas cards to my family in Liverpool. I know you don't 'give to recieve' and all that... but I never seem to get many cards back of them... so what's the point.

My advice... get things sent early before it all KICKS OFF!!!

I know what you mean - why make the effort? its a shame though

Yeah I def. hope to mail things before the real rush starts, so there's hopefully a better chance it'll get there too but then I don't wanna mail things out too early so they arrive before December - that'd seem a little hasty somehow!