Violets on the way
to Shannon, in my same state of GA, and to Cathy in far away Australia.
P. O. funny – I took them in and he weighed and stamped Shannon’s as a package, then looked at Cathy’s (exactly the same – 3 blocks, same type envelope,etc….”) and said, you know this is small enough to call it a letter and we wouldn’t have to do the custom forms. It should get there fine. I said okay, and he weighed and stamped it as a letter and it costs 20 cent less to mail Cathy’s to Australia than it did to send Shannon’s just up the road a few hours. LOL
I've sent all of mine as 'letters' from New Zealand for the same reason – a 'package' is much more expensive even for the same weight. I think the key is the thickness of the envelope – from here the maximum is 10mm (about 3/8 inch) to be considered a letter.
That is just plain wrong … sounds like a lazy PO clerk didn't want to handle the customs paperwork, so Cathy's 3 blocks were slim enough for a "letter," but Shannon's 3 blocks were deemed to be a parcel.
The USPS has a template with a slot and if your envelope goes through, it's slim enough to be a letter, but I've encountered some postal clerks that REFUSE to use the template and INSIST on charging me the parcel rate.