Great! I just wrote a dozen officials on non-postage paid cards planning to buy Christmas stamps for them…
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Oh no 
You could put them in envelopes I guess?
I also am so bummed about this, had to add postage to 5 cards.
Hand cancellation seems something I need to try to do. I also used stamps to send some letters to my friends overseas. And 95% of those letters didn’t have any cancellation postmarks. Some of my friends are big fans of postmark. And they felt disappointed without a postmark.
Can I go to any post office for hand cancellation? Or any post office you recommend in Brisbane?
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Yes, prepaid maxicard is an excellent invention by Australia Post. So far, I didn’t find any other countries that have prepaid maxicard. With this tool, you can send postcards overseas at a lower price. That’s why you can see that nearly 70% of postcards sent from Australia are maxicard. And any maxicard with prepaid postage can all be used without stamps. There are many cheap old maxicard on eBay. Some 4-5 maxicard sets only cost you around $3. Since you don’t need to put any new stamps on that maxicard, you probably will disappoint some receivers who collect stamps. Here I have a technic. Buy some old used Australian stamps on eBay (usually I get $2 for 100 old stamps). Then put those old stamps on the maxicard like the picture shown below.
In this way, I bet most people will get satisfied.
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Wow! Would love to receive that 
. I love the Australia prepaid maxicards 
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I don’t agree with that. In another page, you can see they said any “greeting card” up to 20g can use Christmas postage. And I also asked staff in the post office in last year, they said this Christmas rates can apply on both sealed envelopes and postcards. Finally, I sent a lot of postcards or greeting cards in an envelope to friends in Australia or overseas. They have all arrived safely. So I think as long as you keep it below the 20g. Then you don’t have to worry too much. You don’t need to stick that “card only” sticker either.
Regarding hand cancels, in my experience most post offices will apply a counter date stamp (CDS) to your mail if requested. Some, such as Brisbane GPO have attractive pictorial postmarks.
Oh, no postmark is always sad. But I found with machine cancellations it would often smear and cover a significant portion of the back of the postcard so that’s no good either!
I’ve had really pleasant experiences with all my nearby post offices (inner south side), if you give them the cards and ask for a cancellation they do it without question. And now they recognise me and know to expect a stack 
The GPO also has two special design cancellations so that’s nice to ask for if ever you’re in the city.
Last year I used Christmas postage on postcards no problems, but this year I’ve been told at more than one PO now that it has to be in an envelope for the reduced rate to apply. It’s a ridiculous policy in my opinion, but then it’s AusPost so…
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I don’t know how much help I can been here in the UK, but my first Australian Maxicard that I recieved (2019) was issued in January 1991 and had no additional stamps applied.
I’ve recieved a few other pre-paid cards and maxicards in the tags from Australia, one had an additional 5c stamp applied (?) and was machine cancelled and one other was covered in already used Australia/New Zealand Queen Elizabeth stamps around the pre-paid barcode.
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Hi @Maddymail,
Thanks so much for your feedback. I added a 5 cent platypus stamp to one of my Maxicards the other day, just to brighten up the writing side a bit more. But it did take up a fair bit of room. I put it far away from the ‘postage paid’ markings so it didn’t cause any confusion, but if I want to write lots, I wouldn’t do it.
It was good to learn from Helen (above) that the pre-paid Aussie Maxicards date back to about 1990. Any cards older than that probably require full postage. 
I really like the 1991 card you received and I appreciate seeing the markings on it. Thanks so much! 
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I have sent some postcards this year with 65c and a $2.4 rate. So far I didn’t find any problem. But your case definitely increases my concern. I probably will put my address on the postcard in case they want to return it. I
Yes, I have used a combination of international and domestic.
I add 10% to the domestic part.
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I’ve had no problem with using Christmas rate stamps on my postcards.
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Just a (not so recent) update in case anyone is yet to discover, postcards from Australia 
are now all $3- the same as current Christmas postage. This is significantly less than it was before but still more than most maxicards. It also reduces the price gap between pre-paid AusPost postcards (non maxicards. Not stamp collector friendly 
) and store bought postcards… a little.
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RE: the used stamps. That is a great idea!