CALCULATING
PARCEL
POST BY HAND (Don't go there.)
To
calculate what it costs to send a box by Parcel Post, our government
wants you to get a postal
zone table for zones measured from your home town, like the
one on the main page, and to use the two
tables below and do these steps:
1. Find the BMC city
or the ASF city that serves your Zip code.
You
can think
of a BMC/ASF as a
big mailing center or an automatic sorting facility.
The largest BMC/ASF is the State of Alaska.
Even physically smaller BMC/ASFs
can embrace
destinations that are as much as 5 zones away.
2. Inter or intra? See
if the parcel's destination is or is not in a Zip code also served by your own BMC or
ASF.
Now you know if this is a intra- or an inter-BMC/ASF shipment.
3. Get the zone. For
an inter-BMC/ASF shipment, use
the destination Zip and a zone table sheet calculated from your home
town like the one above for my town to get the destination zone.
4. Decide whether or not you have
a nice little machinable box.
A
parcel is
“machinable”
and cheaper if it is not more than 34
inches long, or 17 inches high, or 17 inches thick, or 35 pounds in
weight,
isn’t tied with string, and other obscurities. (For books, or
other printed
matter going Parcel Post, the maximum weight is 25 pounds.)
More at http://pe.usps.com/cpim/ftp/manuals/dmm300/101.pdf
The
non-machinable penalty for
inter-BMC/AF rates
is $3.89.
Within an BMC/ASF, the
non-machinable
penalty is $2.87
5. If INTER (between BMCs/ASFs),
look up the cost to that zone on the inter-BMC/ASF table
below, on either the machinable or non-machinable side.
6. If INTRA, here are
the costs to Zone 5 for packages from 1 to 10 lbs:
- $6.83
- 7.59
- 8.33
- 9.00
- 9.63
- 10.19
- 10.73
- 11.21
- 11.66
- 12.08
The
whole table starts on page 20 here:
http://pe.usps.gov/cpim/ftp/manuals/dmm300/ratesandfees.pdf
For
comparison, the inter
BMC/ASF prices for the
same weights range from $8 to $20.
(These are
non-machinable rates.)
BMC/ASF
CITY THAT SERVES YOU
glossary:
BMC =
Bulk Mail Center
ASF =
Auxiliary Service Facility
For
more postal abbreviations, acronyms and a USPS technical term
glossary, see http://www.listsbank.com/postal_terms.htm
BMCs
(Bulk Mail Centers) in Zip code-order
New Jersey
005, 068-079, 085-098, 100-119, 124-127
Springfield
010-067, 120-123, 128, 129
Philadelphia
080-084, 137-139, 169-199
Pittsburgh
150-168, 260-266, 439-447
Washington DC
200-212, 214-239, 244, 254, 267, 268
Greensboro NC
240-243, 245-249, 270-297, 376
Cincinnati
250-253, 255-259, 400-418, 421, 422, 425-427, 430-433, 437, 438,
448-462, 469-474
Atlanta
298, 300-312, 317-319, 350-352, 354-368, 373, 374, 377-379, 398, 399.
Jacksonville
299, 313-316, 320-342, 344, 346, 347, 349.
Memphis
369-372, 375, 380-397, 700, 701, 703-705, 707, 708, 713, 714, 716, 717,
719-729
St. Louis
420, 423, 424, 475-479, 614-620, 622-631, 633-639
Detroit
434-436, 465-468, 480-497
Chicago
463, 464, 530-532, 534, 535, 537-539, 600-611, 613
Minneapolis/St. Paul
498, 499, 540-551, 553-564, 566
Des Moines
500-516, 520-528, 612, 680, 681, 683-689
Kansas City
640, 641, 644-658, 660-662, 664-679, 739
Denver
690-693, 800-816, 820, 822-831, 856, 857
Dallas
706, 710-712, 718, 733, 747, 750-799, 880, 885
Seattle
835, 838, 970-978, 980-986, 988-994
Los Angeles
889-891, 893, 900-908, 910-928, 930-935
San Francisco
894, 895, 897, 936-966
ASFs
(Auxiliary Service Facilities) in Zip code order
Buffalo
130-136, 140-149
Fargo ND
565, 567, 580-588
Sioux Falls SD
570-577
Billings MT
590-599, 821
Oklahoma City
730, 731, 734-738, 740, 741, 743-746, 748, 749
Salt Lake City
832-834, 836, 837, 840-847, 898, 979
Phoenix
850, 852, 853, 855, 859, 860, 863, 864
Albuquerque
865, 870-875, 877-879, 881-884
Other ASF
Puerto Rico
006-009
Hawaii
967-969
Alaska
995-999
Inter-BMC/ASF
PARCEL POST CHARGES by Zone
