This has been a very informative thread for me!
Do you guys know if you can only get the media mail route through USPS? I mailed out some DVDs earlier this year through trades/stw, etc. I have always gone to the UPS store because it's super close and I can walk across there from work. My post office is a trek. I have always used UPS in the past and had reasonable rates. Well this time I had a bunch of stuff to mail and just sent the DVDs and didn't really think about. Got home, and saw that each DVD was about $4.20 apiece to mail - and it specifically said on the receipt media mail. I thought rates had just raised and still didn't think too much about it until one of the stw exchange persons asked (extremely nicely, just wanting to make sure) about it. I felt terrible!! I did get a new person at UPS that day and chalked the whole thing up to that.
But does anyone know if you can request and get the regular media mail rate through UPS, or do they truly charge $2 extra per mailer now?