I mailed a box of books the other day to an APO and the clerk said it could not go media mail and had to go priority.  I don't know if it was because of the weight (3+ lbs), but I was a little dismayed that it cost nearly $10.  The requester RC also said that it would not cost more for media mail than if it was mailed in the U.S., but that clearly that was not the case here.   Anyone else ever have this happen?

the clerk was wrong.  You can go to usps.com and leave a comment, question, or complaint.  Or even a compliment, if you have one.  Scroll down to the bottom and click on Customer Service, then on the right there is a choice for email.

Whenever a clerk says you can't do something that you believe you can, make them enter it on their computer. If it couldn't go media mail, the computer wouldn't let them ring it up that way.

Hmmm...  The clerk did look it up on the computer, twice, b/c when she said "priority" I specifically asked about media mail.  She said that some APOs were not cleared for media mail but they were adding more.  Oh well.  It's mailed out and done with now.  Thanks for the responses.  If I mail out to an APO again, I'll make sure to mention the info.

The Clerk was still wrong, APO's can accept media mail.

You know why?

Cause it only goes media mail transit to either the east coast or the west coast of the United States, depending on which side of the world the military members is at.

Once it gets to one of those ports, it is handed over to the military for transport overseas.  So, she was wrong, next time, question further.  There is no reason you should have to pay the priority rate when you were clearly shipping media mail stuff.

Good luck!

 ETA:  also, everytime I have been in a PO to ship stuff, the clerk has to change that the computer info to change that it is going via media mail.  Now that I am back stateside, I can tell that the PO is low on funds.  Every stinking time, they try to upsell me something, whether it be stamps, delivery confirmation, insurance, do I want to send it overnight, etc., etc, etc.  It is actually irritating.  So, just makes me wonder if they are not trying to plump up the bottom line.

Leigh

I ran into this the first time we were at an overseas APO.  The way the clerk at the APO post office explained it was that for packages over a certain weight, there was no first class, only priority or the lower level rates.  You could do media mail (and even parcel post), but they would potentially take a very long time to arrive. 

I mailed about 20 large boxes media mail and parcel post when we moved to our current FPO address.  No problem.

I think some offices aren't very experienced with services that are out of the ordinary.  And some people just make mistakes and don't want to admit they might be wrong.