Furthest Royal Mail Journey for a Letter in the UK

[starrymarkb]

Royal Mail do, and add an admin fee on top.
I recently experienced this, however the sender warned me, and I didn't bother claiming it as it was a brochure from an estate agent.
Estate agent told me not to bother collecting and paying as they realised they hadn't paid postage straight away, and they sent me a replacement brochure correctly

I've recently had one where the franker had managed to print postage of 0p - though Royal Mail recovered it from the sender (the letter was stamped "shortfall paid by sender, treat as first class")

Amusingly it was a bill from the landlord!

 

[richw]

Can someone explain the bit about a First Class stamp being sufficient for sending mail to Europe? Anyone know why?

Sorry it's all new to me.

Officially it isnt, however some countries don't bother with claiming (may even be limited to.some regions) short amount back. My example was regular mailing of greeting cards to Greece, where I only ever used first class.it took longer than if 'd paid correct postage, but always arrivdd and no excess charged

 

[transmanche]

Can someone explain the bit about a First Class stamp being sufficient for sending mail to Europe? Anyone know why?

It used to be the case for a number of years (certainly within the past two decades) that the price for (20g?) letters to the EU was the same price as the basic 60g first class stamp in the UK - and this was publicised by the Royal Mail (e.g. on books of stamps). Eventually the RM increased the price for letters to the EU (and introduced books of 'E' stamps alongside the '1st' and '2nd' books).

richw says from his experience of sending cards to Greece using first class stamps, the recipient has never been surcharged for under-payment. I'd guess this says more about the Greek postal system than RM - and suggest that he's lucky the cards actually get delivered.

 

[Butts]

When I was at Edinburgh Airport I looked for a Royal Mail Hub and noticed a hangar/warehouse next to the TNT one on the far side of The Airport - it has not got such a big logo on as the TNT premises.

Also whilst in Kirkwall I noticed The Post/Sorting Office seemed to have quite a large fleet of vans for a small place. Later when crossing to Hoy on The Ferry to visit Scapa Flow (excellent museum) one of the said vans was onboard presumeably with the mail.

Who knows perhaps there was a letter within it's load posted the day before on The Lizard....good value for 60p

 

[starrymarkb]

The Exeter one is just a covered loading bay - it's the White Roofed structure by the road
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/preview#!data=!1m4!1m3!1d1302!2d-3.4194552!3d50.7299498!2m1!1e3&fid=7

I suspect that most of the sorting is done in advance, so the mailbags for each flight is loaded onto a truck at the Sorting Office (5 mins down the A30) to minimise the amount of vehicles going airside