PC2Paper have released a new Letter Pricing API which enables you to do real time price queries on letters before they are sent from your own system. You may find this useful if you are reselling the PC2Paper service and would like to provide your customers with all the pricing options available such as special delivery, different printing options, envelope selections, printing station selection etc. Given all these options the PC2Paper Letter Pricing API will give you a price for your letter which you can then use to bill your user.

For more about Letter Pricing API, please visit the API section of our web site.

Ryanair have launched a new bid for rival airline Aer Lingus. Ryanair already owns nearly 30% of Aer Lingus following an earlier failed takeover attempt. They have offered to pay 1.40 Euros a share for the remaining shares. Ryanair made its first take over bid in October 2006 but this was opposed by the company and rejected by the shareholders. However, the deputy chief executive of Ryanair has said that the aviation industry has changed immeasurably since 2006. In order to be successful Ryanair will need the support of the Irish government which currently owns 25% of Aer Lingus and which has previously rejected Ryanairs offers.

There will be no Travel Blog of the Week during December to allow PC2Paper staff to concentrate on the increased volume of mail we receive during December. The regular feature will be back at the beginning of January.

This article suggests that airlines could soon introduce charges for seats with extra legroom such as those location by the emergency exits. The prediction comes after Singapore Airlines introduced the policy earlier this month. Air France and Virgin Atlantic have also already introduced charges for these seats. Travel experts have predicted that customers will have to pay around £75 for a return ticket to enjoy that luxury of stretching their legs and that the charges are likely to become common place across most airlines. Air France currently charges £42 (50 Euros) each way on flights to the US and intends to widen the policy to all of its long haul flights. Singapore Airlines charges £32 per sector on all of its long haul flights and is looking at introducing charges for other seat categories in the future. It all looks like bad news for those of us with long legs, it appears if you want to avoid cramp on the flight, you will need to pay for it.

A consumer watchdog has called for post offices to reduce lengthy queues. The watchdog found that a firth of post office customers have to wait at least 10 minutes before they get to the post office counter. Although the average waiting time is down slightly the watch dog has criticised businesses for assuming that customers are happy to queue. It has said that priority should be given to improving services at poorly performing post branches that have problems with queuing and other service problems. Despite this the results from the watchdogs survey found that 94% of customers were happy with the service they receive from post office branches. It occurs to me that with more and post office branches closing the queues are likely to become longer not shorter as the remaining branches have to cope with more customers. Perhaps the watchdog needs to address this issue?

To make sure that your cards and letters get to their destination in time for Christmas you might want to check out the last recommended posting dates which have just been released by Royal Mail. The last recommended date for mail sent to South and Central America, the Middle East, New Zealand and Australia is fast approaching so if you are planning to send cards to these destinations you need to get them in the post by the 5th of December. The last posting date for Europe is the 12th of December. You have a little bit more time for mail sent within the UK, 2nd class mail should be sent by the 18th of December and 1st class should be posted by the 20th of December.

At PC2paper we will still post your mail after the last recommended posting dates but will not be able to guarantee Christmas delivery after these dates. All Christmas cards are printed and posted in the UK so make sure you leave enough time for them to get to their destination. Remember you can also use our US, Thai and European printing stations to get your mail there even faster. A full list of the last recommended posting dates for the UK is below.

Friday 5th December: South and Central America, Caribbean, Africa, Middle East, Far East, New Zealand and Australia.

Wednesday 10th December: Japan, USA, Canada and Eastern Europe.

Friday 12th December: Western Europe.

Thursday 18th December: Second Class UK mail.

Saturday 20th December: First Class UK mail.

This weeks Travel Blog of the Week is Candy from Strangers: Traveling the World in  Search of Sweets written by Malena. As the name of the blog suggest Malena has set out not only to travel the world but also to track down new and exciting types of candy. One of the more recent posts sees Malena in Switzerland where she takes the chocolate train to visit the chocolate factory naturally. The full tour includes a visit to the Gruyere cheese factory with a description of the cheese making process and some free samples before heading off to what appears to the highlight of the trip, the tasting room at the Cailler chocolate factory. Although the tour of the chocolate factory doesn't actually include a visit to the factory (due to insurance reasons) the main focus of the tour is the tasting room where you can eat as much chocolate as you want. The whole experience gets a fairly good review and Malena comments that the chocolate is very rich and it is hard to eat more than a few pieces. In the name of research she gamely tries a wide variety of flavours, its tough work but someone has to do it.

In contrast the Haribo Museum in Uzes appears to be a rather disappointing experience. According to Malena getting to the museum is not easy with the bus only running once a day. Once there the museum focuses mainly on licorice which judging by the the authors comments are not exactly her favourite type of sweets. Whilst not offering a great selection of free samples unless you like licorice the museum is praised for the information it provides on the history of Haribo and the interesting statistics such as "if all of the Haribo gummy bears made in one year were placed in a line, it would circle the earth three times". Despite this the Haribo Museum does not come recommended. As well as the candy related travel articles this blog also contains various little bite sized posts called random candy where the author posts a picture a and a short description of some random pieces of candy with a short description. Pictured left are some gomitas which according to Malena are "sweet, soft, and flavour gumdrops". Its well worth checking out some of the other posts on this blog but beware it could leave you craving sugar.

Train fares will rise in the new year with some tickets going up by nearly double the rate of inflation. Regulated fares including season tickets are due to increase by an average of 6% from the 2nd of January 2009 with unregulated tickets including leisure and advance fares rising 7% on average with some rising as much as 11%. The train companies have said that the revenue will be reinvested but the watchdog Passenger Focus have said that some rises are unjustified.