There must have been a grace period after the September 2020 price rise, as I posted cards at the old lower rate for a little while before I realised. All of mine reached their recipients, as far as I remember.
I thought the 1st class stamp will increase by 15p but that’s only postage rates.
1st class is up only 10p this time.
Interesting that there is new zoning for Europe but for postcards just flat rate.
International Economy has gone up
Well, I have 4 letters to post on Monday… to Canada/US. Oh what fun that was… not… And not looking forward to barcoded make up stamps… Not a lot of room on a C6 envelope if using one of the big first class stamps… I think I will be overpaying on many letters this year… but, it won’t feel much like it perhaps currently all of my 1st class stamps have been bought at 85p or less!
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So just to understand this fully:
New postcard rate from today is £1.85 (up from £1.70)?
But 1st class stamp has also gone up to 95p, so if I use a 1st class stamp on a postcard, it’ll count towards 95p worth? Is that right? i.e. if I use two 1st class stamps, I’ve technically overpaid by 5p?
Thanks!
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Yes, exactly that!
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2 x 95p = £1.90 so …
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Yes! Or you can use 1st + 2nd + 22p (and up until today it was 1st + 2nd + 19p, so I’m merrily kidding myself that the prices have only gone up by 3p!) 
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Well, just bought some small makeup value stamps without the barcode… and picked up a price leaflet - oh, much more shiny than the last!
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I went to the Post Office an hour or so ago.
For the first time since I started Postcrossing the chap behind the counter didn’t weigh the card or or ask where it was going to, all he said was “Another one? I thought you’d run out of slots. I don’t suppose I need to tell you it’s £1.70, do I?”
I did consider paying that as I think there maybe an overlap period but decided to be honest and point out the area of his ways. He seemed surprised by this price rise, got out his mobile phone and looked up the prices. “Oh yeah,” he said “thank you”.
It wasn’t long ago that his wife ran out of £1.70 stamps while doing a batch of 5 of my cards and she had to phone him to ask what to do.
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There was a lovely little post office I used to go to, before the sub-postmaster retired… He gave me the phone number and as I’d visit on stamp day of issue, he wanted me to ring up the day before and remind him!
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The website for swapping stamps is now live.
Royal Mail have updated the Q&A…
The following stamps are having barcodes added to them:
Machin definitive stamps, this covers:
- NVIs 1st Class, 2nd Class. 1st Class Large Letter; 2nd Class Large Letter
- These make up value stamps: 1p; 2p; 5p; 10p; 20p; 50p; £1; £2; £3; £5
- International Tariff stamps
Country definitive stamps: England; Northern Ireland; Scotland & Wales
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Which is what I’ve done this morning! I usually have a stock of £1.70s, but I used them all up last week (the FA Cup ones were so big I would have struggled to fit the additional 15p postage on most of my cards, so was keen to send them on their way before the price increase).
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Oh yes I’ve got quite the mix of different value stamps and not many 1st class at all. But just wanted to double check!!
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Really disappointed with the new barcode stamps. Price increase - ok that happens but why do they have to be so big? I guess it’s for the barcode. 
Oh well.
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From another forum, someone wrote:
Received back my brand new stamps today. It took less than a week and everything was perfect. I received back the exact same number and denomination of stamps that I sent. Simple. Great job!
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Bah humbug, approaching that time of year when there’s no post/collection on Easter Friday & the bank holiday Monday, and well, depending on how things are at your local delivery office, will you be lucky to have post on Saturday? I don’t think I have requested addresses over the Easter period.
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For those asking about return times of postmarking from the Handstamp Centre’s
I recieved this yesterday and what could possibly be the quickest turn-around of a postcard from postmarking, this was sent in on Monday and returned Thursday, they even acknowledged my backdated request for a Sunday. Returned in a clear glassine envelope.
I wonder if it was due to the theme of the postcard, as 110 years ago today, the news hit of the sinking of the Titanic
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Hello everyone, I hope I am posting this in a relevant place.
I will be in the UK in the following weeks and would like to send some postcards from there. I was looking at the postage rates and saw that there were two options for out-of-Europe delivery (economy for £1.60 and airmail for £1.85), but for Europe there only seems to be one (£1.85).
So does that mean I have to use stamps that add up to £1.85 for sending postcards to Europe, but for the rest of the world, postcards with £1.60 will arrive too?
Thanks a lot for your help!
I’ve never used the economy postage, so can’t comment on its reliability, but yes, stamps adding up to £1.85 can be used for postcards to Europe and the rest of the world.
Make sure you buy bona fide Royal Mail stamps. There are stamps (I can’t remember what they’re called, maybe someone else can?) that are sold at tourist venues and in some shops that sell postcards, and they are very unreliable, likely to take more than a year to reach their destination.
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