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@ryanne: yep, closes nicely.
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I wouldn’t recommend that as its against USPS regs. As silly as it sounds if caught the USPS would charge you twice for those packages. One possible way around it would be if the regional A box was previously used and has cancelled postage on it.
The risk of a package like that getting delayed for extra postage isn’t worth it. You can buy boxes in similar sizes that will fit into the padded flat rate envelope on ebay or elsewhere fairly cheaply. I bought 50 boxes like this for about $22 on ebay before.
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There is no rule (that I’m aware of) against using a recycled priority box inside a priority envelope (if there is, please cite it). There is a very vague rule regarding the “misuse” of free priority packaging which seems to mainly pertain to using free Priority packaging for any use other than shipping via Priority Mail. USPS says you can combine priority boxes (so using more than one per shipment must not be “misuse”).
And, there’s no way to get “caught” – USPS is prohibited from inspecting the contents of priority mail without a warrant or serious concern (package is ticking, leaking, etc).
As long as you’ve paid for a priority label, I don’t think there’s any misuse going on and the risk of incurring a delay or extra charge is essentially zero. That being said, don’t do anything you’re not comfortable with. Your mileage may vary; no warranties are expressed or implied, etc…
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Unfortunately, you are dead wrong and spreading false info. The USPS reg you are breaking is that one can not combine a flat rate priority box with a non flat rate priority box. Regional boxes are not flat rate. IF you want to have some fun bring that contraption to a retail window at USPS and ask them their opinion.
Also, all US Postal Employees can pull a package from circulation and send it to a clerk or someone else to have the weight and postage class checked. Now this is not going to happen at a plant since employees there really have no contact with the packages since they are mostly moved by machine.
But it can and does happen at the sort level in the post office or at the carrier level once the package hits the street. Not only does this happen, the Post Office actually encourages carriers to do this because the Post Office is losing money every year.
There are plenty of “Dudley Do-rights” employed at the post office that follow every reg you can think of. You might get away with that contraption a few times or even a 100 times, but eventually Dudley will catch you.
Since at best your saving .50 cents using that contraption I don’t think the risk reward is high enough. I’d rather not have upset customers and ship right the first time.
I know all of this because I was a temp carrier at the Post Office before. I saw plenty of packages get pulled for weight and class inspections. You’d be amazed at how many people try to mail priority flat rate envelopes using first class postage.
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I don’t know if this helps or confuses things, but when I put a small flat rate box into a polymailer to protect the item I was shipping (I sent it first class 8oz.) , the lady at the post office when she grabbed it to put it in a tote gave me a look. She said, “This sure feels like a small flat rate box inside.” I didn’t say anything and understood that it was her nice way of giving me a warning. Now I must say in my defense that the box itself had already been used and I was just re-using it. I hate to throw away perfectly usable boxes. She didn’t seem to like it and I was made to understand that as a practice that was frowned upon at the post office.
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