MIT Mail Services and Procurement have jointly agreed to renew the Institute's partnership with DHL Worldwide Express for express shipping services, with a new pricing schedule.
This decision comes after a lengthy bidding process and discussions with other major express carriers as well as DHL. The factors leading to the decision were overall service to the Institute, flexibility, variety of services and price.
DHL has offered MIT a new pricing schedule that considerably decreases the Institute's express expenses. For example, the price of an overnight letter within the United States is a flat $5.95. This is considerably less than any other carrier submitting a bid, even at their discounted prices. It is less than half the retail price of the United States Postal Service's Express Mail overnight letter.
In addition, DHL is offering, under the new contract, a second-day service. This service, which the company had not offered before, was designed specifically for MIT. The prices for second-day delivery service range from $1 to $10 less than their overnight service.
For the convenience of MIT employees who may have need to ship items from places away from campus, DHL will accept the MIT Procurement credit card as payment. By including MIT's account number on the airway bill as well as the credit card, the responsible department will be charged the MIT discounted price.
DHL will continue to operate the drop-off counter in the CopyTech Center in Rm 11-004 from 4-8pm, Monday through Friday. The company has also extended the deadline for pickup from MIT offices to 8:30pm. The number to call for a pickup is 1-800-CALL-DHL.
A version of this article appeared in the September 1, 1999 issue of MIT Tech Talk (Volume 44, Number 4).
