Royal Mail stamps now so expensive it’s cheaper to fly to Europe to post cards

First-class stamps have become so expensive that it may be cheaper to fly to Europe to post your Christmas cards, according to a shocking recent analysis.

The decision by Royal Mail to hike the price to £1.65 means that sending a letter from certain foreign countries is now half the cost of domestic postage.

Research conducted by The Telegraph and Skyscanner identified six overseas destinations where posting 100 cards would be more economical than in the UK even when factoring in the cost of a return flight.

The expense of sending 100 first-class Christmas cards domestically now stands at £165.

However, in Albania, an international stamp costs just 100 Lek (85p), meaning it would cost only £85 to send the same number of cards, which could take up to five business days to reach the UK.

According to comparison site Skyscanner, holidaymakers can secure flights from Luton to Tirana for as little as £27 in December.

This implies that a trip to the Albanian capital to post 100 Christmas cards would total just £112 a saving of £50 compared to using a British postbox.

Flights from Luton to Belgrade, Serbia, can be found for as low as £33. The cost of sending 100 Christmas cards abroad from the Serbian capital amounts to just £78 less than half the cost of first-class postage via Royal Mail, with delivery to the UK taking between three and five days.

An analysis by The Telegraph, using data gathered by Skyscanner on November 12, revealed comparably affordable flights to four other European destinations boasting lower postage rates than the UK.

These include a £28 return journey from Manchester to Memmingen, Germany, where dispatching 100 cards would only set you back £91, and a similarly priced £28 return trip from London Stansted to Milan, with a cost of £108 for sending the same number of cards.

Return flights from Luton to Sofia, Bulgaria and Faro, Portugal were also competitively priced. Mailing 100 Christmas cards from these cities to the UK would cost less than £110.

In most instances, analysis found that international stamps were more economical overseas than first-class ones in the UK. For instance, in Japan, an international stamp is priced at 100 Yen, roughly equivalent to 51p.

Royal Mail delivers approximately 150 million Christmas cards during the festive season, with an average household sending 50 and receiving 17.

A Royal Mail spokesman said: “Our stamp prices of 85p for second class and £1.65 for first class remain well below the European average of £1.33 and £1.73 respectively.

“We always consider the price of stamps very carefully in the face of declining letter volumes and the increasing costs associated with maintaining the one-price-goes-anywhere universal service to all 32 million UK addresses.”