SIMON CALDER
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Your support makes all the difference.Those of us who still pay for our postcards and stamps are evidently choosing the wrong means of transport. A month ago I paid pounds 7.80 for the privilege of posting a card from Taipei in Taiwan, and asked for advice on cutting costs. The subsequent revelation of free postage for passengers on Malaysia Airlines brought a swift response from many readers. John Muldoon of London reports that on Singapore Airlines, not only do the crew post your mail for free - they also supply the cards as part of an in-flight stationery pack.
Donald Allan of Lutterworth goes one better: "On a recent holiday to Sri Lanka, flying with Air Lanka, it was possible to get postcards and pens from the cabin crew, who subsequently post the cards for you free of charge - and all done with a gracious smile."
J G Pritchard has another suggestion. "The thrifty traveller could do worse than leave postcards in the Barrel Mailbox in Floreana on the Galapagos Islands. No stamp required, but you are honour-bound to take out someone else's card and post it on their behalf when you get home. It's a wonderful way to confuse friends - mine got cards from Saudi Arabia."
A few readers entered into the spirit of the competition by actually buying stamps. Melanie Pursey recommends Burma: "I posted cards from Rangoon to Australia and England for only 3 kyat. At a black-market exchange rate of 180 kyat to the pound, this works out at just under 1.7p each. And they all arrived safely." John Marrone enigmatically sends an Estonian postcard from Vienna to recommend acquiring a friend in the world's smallest country. "A postcard sent within the Vatican City costs only a few hundred lire."
Picking a single winner from the weight of mail seems churlish, so instead I have emulated many respondents and asked an airline for free postcards. Air Lanka has kindly agreed to supply a pack of its inflight postcards - and pens - to each of the people named above, but you will have to buy your own stamps.
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