Postcard vs Envelopes

DebsFran

Can you use sealed envelopes instead of postcards?

is it better to use plain or pictured/patterned postcards /envelopes?

NBLondon

In Ye Olde Days of comping, a lot of them specifically said "postcard or stuck down envelope".  Nowadays, the answer would be to read the T&C to see if it is mentioned.   If it says postcard, the organiser is within their rights to discard any entry that isn't a postcard.  Whether they bother or not depends on how many they have and how they process them.

My guess would be that if it's a small provider and the postcards is going to an actual business address then there is a chance that a more interesting card could end up being picked by a human being.  If it's going to a PO Box, it might well be typed into a database by a clerk or even scanned.  Which suggests to me that the plainer and clearer the better i.e. less likely to be rejected by machine or tossed aside as confusing by data entry person.

Back of an empty A4 pad, cut into quarters makes 4 postcards.