MSE Blog: Why I won’t ever send a letter first class again 5 August 2014 at 11:22AM edited 5 August 2014 at 11:25AM in Weddings & anniversaries 8 replies 2.5K views

Former_MSE_Helen

"We’ve been conditioned into thinking that first class is, well, classier. Whether it’s flying or getting the train, first class is what everyone aspires to. But with that added class comes added cost..."

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Why I won’t ever send a letter first class again


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Lavendyr

Not sure why this is living in Weddings & Anniversaries?

I send all my mail second class.

Anatidaephobia

Lavendyr wrote: »

Not sure why this is living in Weddings & Anniversaries?

I send all my mail second class.

The link is a post about sending out wedding invitations.

It is a bit of an odd thread though.

jmclusky

I agree about the tradition of sending out wedding invitations by post, but are RSVPs by post necessary? At our wedding we invited people to RSVP by email if they wanted, but still sent out normal invitations. That would save even more than going for second class.

As for my first vs. second class rules, I send first class for anything 'personal' and one-off, and second-class for anything non-urgent or 'bulk' - so a personal letter goes first, and christmas cards go second.

Rajesh

Not so secret, secret: PRINT YOUR ADDRESSES!
If you addresses are machine readable, they will zip through the system without needing to be manually handled. That way Second class can be as quick as First class

david39

Surely the point about second class is there is NO GUARANTEE that it will be delivered next day.


If Royal Mail have busy periods, they will slow down the second class mail to favour first class that does carry the guarantee.


We often get second class mail delivered the day after posting but it is not always the case.


Incidentally, the important part of the address is the Post Code. This is the bit that you need to take care with and make legible. If the electronic reader cannot decipher this, it goes into a hand sorting line and could take ages. Also, the post code needs to be the last line of the address - don't write anything below it, like the county for instance, as the reader only picks up the last line and only recognises post codes.

System

david39 wrote: »

Surely the point about second class is there is NO GUARANTEE that it will be delivered next day.

There is no guarantee of next day with First Class

We aim to deliver 93% of 1st Class items of mail the next working day

It's only an aim, not a guarantee.

ellay864

I live near Crewe - everything just seems to get on the mail train and get there really quickly for me, with no difference in first or second class

Lavendyr

If this is a wedding-related thing, when we sent our invitations we really needed the RSVPs as they contained peoples' menu choices and we had planned to recycle them as place cards at the reception - which doubled (trebled?) as a reminder of what everyone had chosen for their meals (written in their own fair hands so they couldn't claim a mix up ;-) ).

So we decided to include SAEs with all our invites for the RSVPs. The cost of 60 second class stamps was probably more than the cost of printing place cards, but as a result we had absolutely no non-responses and didn't have to spend any time chasing people for their replies/meal choices.