February 6, 2013

Automation Discounts for Periodicals Letters and Flats

We announced standards limiting automation discounts for Periodicals letters and flats to Intelligent Mail^® barcodes only in the June 6, 2012, final rule correction Federal Register notice. That final rule correction amended the May 3, 2012, final rule Federal Register notice titled POSTNET Barcode Discontinuation. The standards provided in the corrected final rule became effective January 28, 2013, and mailers were required to prepare their Periodicals mailings in accordance with these standards.

The revised standards limiting automation discounts for Periodicals letters and flats were inadvertently omitted from the January 27, 2013, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM^®) revisions. On March 4, 2013, we will revise DMM sections 707.12, 13 and 14 to incorporate them. The text of the revised DMM sections will appear in the February 7 Postal Bulletin.