Cost of postage and CJS Subs

We received notification today from Royal Mail that they are intending to increase the cost of postage from 2 April.  However, until Ofcom publishes their final decision they can't say by how much or which services will be affected.  The Ofcom report is not due until mid to late March.  In other words very little notice of what could be a 50% (or even more for first class) increase.
One thing that has been confirmed is that the service we use to send the big envelopes (the A4 ones) will be subject to VAT on top of any increase; fortunately we don't use too many of those any more.  Long term subscribers will remember when everything arrived in A4 flats, we shudder to think what the postage would be for those and that number of them too.
As far as CJS is concerned as soon as we know what the new rates will be and how that will affect subscriptions we will tell you. We will keep to our four week notice period and should Royal Mail give us only a few days notice we will carry any additional costs during that time.  However, it looks like postal subscriptions will have to increase to cover the additional postage but we don't see any reason to change electronic subscriptions (unless VAT changes in the April budget but we'll deal that one then!).
We're looking at alternatives for postal subscriptions including considering switching to second class.  If you've any thoughts please do let us know.