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Just want to confirm my thinking on the new rates. So if I want to send Letter mail to Canada and I am using the P stamp it would now be One P stamp (.99cents) + 16 cents in stamps to equal the new rate of $1.15 for up to 30g letter.
For the USA it would then be one P stamp (.99cents) + 41 cents in stamps to equal the new rate of $1.40 for up to 30g letter.
And for international I could just use 3 P stamps for up to 30g. to cover the new rate of $2.92
Is my math correct?
@snoopwiz wrote:For what it is worth.......if you use stamps and find yourself a few cents worth short of what you need, you can drop it in a mail box as is and most all postal employees know, from their "handbook" to let any mail that is short up to 10 cents (the amount is debatable) go through, not returned to sender. This is the info I get from my my Postmaster and Postmistress from the 2 PO's I use.
Perhaps even more so as it is getting more and more difficult to get smaller denomination stamps from retail. I think 10 cent stamps were actually discountinued. That is all.
If the depot is on the ball or of the larger variety (high volume) they should have stock of different small denomination stamps to make up the difference. They can also print individual stamps on demand if you ask. Or they used to be able to. If you use your SSB account you can order the stamps to make up any difference. Minimum order is like 25.oo or so to get free shipping which includes signature service. Screenshot of some of the available stamps attached. Full list with the link.
https://store.canadapost-postescanada.ca/store-boutique/en/5/c/postage-stamps
@snoopwiz wrote:For what it is worth.......if you use stamps and find yourself a few cents worth short of what you need, you can drop it in a mail box as is and most all postal employees know, from their "handbook" to let any mail that is short up to 10 cents (the amount is debatable) go through, not returned to sender. This is the info I get from my my Postmaster and Postmistress from the 2 PO's I use.
It actually isn't debatable, it's specified clearly in the Retail Operations Manual. With the most recent Lettermail increase the "shortpaid" allowance has actually gone up to 11 cents, as that's the difference between 2xP stamps ($1.98) and the Oversized Lettermail rate under 100g ($2.09) - as others have stated, Canada Post accepts 2 'P' stamps in place of an Oversized Lettermail stamp. Employees at sortation depots are encouraged to use their "best judgment" when returning shortpaid items though, so it is possible that items shortpaid more than 11 cents could be pushed through just fine.
Annoyingly they've stopped producing low-value definitive stamps so they're hard to come by these days. Most post offices should have a stock of the ones that are available, but popular ones like 10 cent and 5 cent have sold out from Canada Post directly so you would have to luck into finding a post office that has a backstock of them. 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 22, and 25 cent stamps are still in stock and can be purchased in panes of 50 from the Canada Post website (as Lotz shows above) but once they're sold out they won't be coming back. Canada Post eliminated the low-value definitive with the reasoning that post offices can print off a meter label in any denomination - unfortunately the downside to this is that you can't purchase a bunch of them to take home with you, and the meter labels are huge and take up a ton of real estate on the front of an envelope.
Here's the relevant pages from the most recent "Rate Action" booklet that was sent out to post offices in advance of the May 6th rate increase if anyone wants to read about Lettermail (and it also has the answers to popular questions such as "What are 'P' stamps actually worth"?). I've blanked out any information that would be relevant only to post offices (such as ordering instructions and allocation information):
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