As a standard member I don't understand why I have a free swap registry. It seems a bit unfair that I have credits earned before the big change but nothing for all the PBS postage I used to earn those credits.  Also today I sent 3 books in a single package earning 3 credits but only a single swap credit which implies it's impossible to have an equal number each  of credits and free swaps.

As a sender: If I don't use PBS postage I can still mail requests but wouldn't get free swaps. This should be possible because as a paid up standard member I have unlimited free swaps thus I don't need to earn free swaps via PBS postage.

As a requestor: I should never be charged a swap fee for the term of my paid standard membership with unlimited free swaps plus I also have credits to use to request books from other members------but does each of my requests then generate a negative free swap? And will I be penalized for having so many negative free swaps?

As a standard member I don't understand why I have a free swap registry. It seems a bit unfair that I have credits earned before the big change but nothing for all the PBS postage I used to earn those credits.  Also today I sent 3 books in a single package earning 3 credits but only a single swap credit which implies it's impossible to have an equal number each  of credits and free swaps.

You bought 1 postage, so you get 1 free Swap Fee. (When ordering multiple books from the same sender, that also only USES 1 Swap Fee, not one per book).

Your free Swap Fees from postage do not expire, so in the future, if you decided not to maintain Standard membership, and went down to Limited or a-la-carte, you would be able to use your bank of free Swap Fees.

As a requestor: I should never be charged a swap fee for the term of my paid standard membership with unlimited free swaps plus I also have credits to use to request books from other members------but does each of my requests then generate a negative free swap? And will I be penalized for having so many negative free swaps?

No. While you are a standard member, you have unlimited free Swap Fees. There is no penalty for using them.

OK, but eventually I will have a negative balance in my free swap registry. What happens when that balance is -25? or -50?

I am at -2 at the moment so they are deducting for each transaction for me and not accumulating. I'm not worried about it as I  had gold key and then paid for a year of the standard membership.

What I see in my account, is that they are deducting a Free Swap from me for each book, BUT my balance stays at 0. So, my balance does not go negative.

I do not use postage, so am not accumulating bankable Free Swaps.

If PBS is really using your accumulated Swap Fees as you request books, and you are a Standard Member, (check what the balance ends up as, not just the debit) ... send in Feedback, as that is probably wrong.

Marya- I'm not seeing any free swap fees being deducted from my balance when I order books, and I've ordered quite a few lately. (Gotta use up some of these credits!) All I have in there are green +1 additions for each time I've used printable postage. 

I did notice that for the ones that PBS went back in and credited from January 1st up to "the change" (Feb. 15), they're called "Rebates". The dates are all wrong, but the book titles are all there. I had to go back in and check- it took quite a while! 

The only ones I'm not seeing yet are the ones for the "Mail to Friend" printable postage transactions that I've done since Jan. 1. I'll wait a few days, since I *think* they've just added this in. If they don't show up in a few days, then I'll send in some Feedback about it. 

I'd love to see them offer a way for members to use extra "free swap" credits to pay for the printable postage fees- like a little button you could click when choosing the printable postage to "redeem" one of those credits to cover the cost of the new transaction. That transaction wouldn't earn another free swap credit and would have to be marked slightly differently in the transaction archive, but I would really go for that option. Maybe I'll send in Feedback about that too...