General Chat

Postage stamps is the way now apparently, if you don't use or take current ones to the post office for a swap before January 2023 you lose them, according to AOL that is.

You can still use them on all your thank you letters as they are valid until the end of January.

I
Fancy sending a business letter and the recipient finding an odd video. Or a letter of condolences only for the bereaved family to find a jokey video. :-(

I don't think you can just take them to a Post Office to swap them ?

I think they have to be sent off.


EDIT

https://www.royalmail.com/sending/barcoded-stamps

It would be a lot easier if we could take them to a post office for a swap.

I saw the chief of the PO on the news a couple of weeks ago. He was asked about old stamps that people may still have and he stated that if, after the date, you still had old ones in your possession you could take them to your nearest Post Office and they would be simply exchanged for the new stamps.

Why can't we do what we did before - just use them, whenever?

If they say 'First Class' that should be enough - you paid the correct price when you bought them.

Who is going to hold onto current stamps until almost a years time ? :-S.

A number of people among my friends and acquaintances have had a moan about this. I am wondering if I am the only one who can’t see what all the fuss is about.

We don’t lose financially. It may be a slight hassle exchanging the stamps but not that difficult. You will be able to print out a form from the Royal Mail website or email (or phone if you don’t use email) and Customer Services will send you one. We have had a year’s notice of this change and you will have 9 months from end of March 2022 to end of January 2023 to make your swaps. This is just a guess but I would think most people will have used their stamps up by Jan 2023 so I really can’t see why it’s such a problem.

LG, We will be swaping ours because there isn't enough time to use them all, we inherited from M.I.L, she had loads.

Just the ones from M.I.L are £41.

I lose books of stamps on a regular basis :-| :-P

Thanks for letting us know ZZzzz. I didn't have a clue about this. I'll have to remember to get my stamps swapped.

We've got loads of stamps as we thought it was a way of managing the frequent price increases because we thought they would always be valid..
I didn't know that you could buy 2nd class stamps in folders of 100 until I was asked to purchase some for a school.
....What a good idea to buy 100 for our household too, I thought :-|

I'm not going to use all of them and the odd amounts in small books, before the set date,so there will need to be lots of swapping from here.

Gwyn I have always bought books when a price rise is due. Just another was of preventing us saving a bit of money. At least I will use all mine with Christmas cards.

I wonder if the new coded stamps will be valid when there is next a price increase or will the codes be able to tell Royal Mail that a surcharge is due?

We, in Tenerife, now have to pay extra postage for sending a coloured envelope. Nearly every greetings card you buy comes with a coloured envelope. I stuck a white label on one for the address but it was unacceptable.

yeah just got my 22/23 tax coding....

I don't know if this is still the case but thought I would put it back up as a reminder.

Price of stamps both 1st and 2nd class is going up from 4th April. As I post about 50+ Christmas cards every year I'm thinking of buying a lot before they go up.

I have put stamps on a load of envelopes ready to use and I bet they won't swap those.