How to Escape the Penalty Box of Peak Season Surcharges

Don’t Let Holiday Shipping Rule Changes Hammer Your Q4 Bottom Line

When I watch hockey, the penalty box always feels unfair. One mistake, and suddenly your team is skating short-handed. But at least the rules don’t change in the middle of the game – unlike peak season surcharges.

This holiday season, parcel shipping feels like trying to defend while the other side has the advantage. FedEx and UPS aren’t just raising rates – they’re sending shippers straight to the penalty box with peak season surcharges layered on top of rate increases. And unlike in hockey, you don’t just sit out for two minutes. These penalties can cost hundreds of dollars per package.

That’s why Tompkins Ventures has expert partners to help companies manage packaging, diversify networks, negotiate contracts and forecast costs with precision. In other words, we know how to help you escape the penalty box before it wrecks your Q4.

If you’re not actively planning now, your bill for peak shipping season could make your finance team feel like they just got hit with a slap shot to the chest.

Carriers Are Using a Whole New Playbook

FedEx and UPS have both released their 2025 peak season shipping surcharge schedules, running from late September through mid-January. And they’re not pulling any punches.

• Residential deliveries: $0.40 to $0.65 extra per package
• Ground Economy: $2.20 to $3.55 per package
• Oversize packages: $90 to $108.50 per package
• Unauthorized packages: $490 to $545 per package
• High-volume shippers: Up to $7.50 extra per ground package and $8.75 per residential air package if weekly spikes exceed thresholds

Think about that last one for a second. If your eCommerce promotions push you over the carrier’s volume baseline, you’re not just charged more for the extra packages. You’re penalized on every single package you ship that week.

And heaven forbid Black Friday or Cyber Monday increase demand beyond forecasts.

That’s not a fee. That’s a power play in the carriers’ favor.

Moving Targets: When Surcharges Shift Week by Week

In hockey, the rules are at least consistent. Two minutes for tripping. Five minutes for fighting. The refs don’t change penalties halfway through the game.

Not so with peak season surcharges. These fees shift week by week. A penalty that costs you $90 in October might cost you $108 in December. A residential surcharge that starts at 40 cents could double by the time holiday orders peak.

If you’re relying on quarterly forecasts, you’re skating blind. By the time you realize what happened, you’re already in the penalty box – with a shipping invoice you didn’t see coming.

This is why the smartest companies model costs weekly, not quarterly. They treat shipping budgets like hockey shifts: short bursts, constantly monitored, with line changes as needed.

‘Holiday Pricing’ Becomes Year-Round Margin Grab

I’ve heard executives shrug this off. “Peak charges? That’s just holiday pricing. We’ve dealt with it before.”

Not anymore.

Peak season surcharges aren’t just seasonal add-ons. They’re part of a larger shift where carriers treat every disruption – fuel costs, dimensional weight, zone creep – as an opportunity to expand their margins. In fact, both FedEx and UPS are moving in lockstep. These major carriers are aligning fees so closely that shippers have few options to play one off the other.

Translation: this isn’t about recovering costs. It’s about extracting maximum profit from captive shippers during their busiest season.

If you don’t have alternative carriers, diversified networks or fulfillment strategies outside the UPS–FedEx duopoly, you’re skating against a stacked deck.

Smart Moves to Stay Out of the Penalty Box

So how do you avoid these penalties? You can’t eliminate peak season surcharges, but you can play smarter. And Tompkins Ventures can match you with teams that can:

• Model shipping costs weekly: Don’t wait until December to find out what your bill will be. Build rolling, week-by-week forecasts that reflect carrier surcharge schedules.
• Manage shipping volume spikes: If your marketing team is planning a “surprise” promotion, loop in logistics. Unplanned surges don’t just strain your warehouses – they trigger carrier penalties.
• Get packaging right: Oversize and unauthorized package fees are brutal. Audit your cartonization. Reducing box size by even an inch can mean the difference between a manageable fee and a $545 penalty.
• Diversify your network: Regional carriers and third-party logistics providers (3PLs) can help balance volumes. Even shifting a fraction of orders away from UPS and FedEx reduces exposure to their penalty system.
• Negotiate smartly: Carriers set the rules, but that doesn’t mean you have zero leverage. Use data, benchmarks and precision in your contracts to claw back some flexibility.

In hockey, discipline keeps you out of the box. In logistics, discipline is forecasting, precision and diversification. And our partners specialize in helping companies forecast, package, diversify and negotiate their way out of unnecessary costs.

Peak Season Surcharges Are Just the First Period

Peak season surcharges aren’t going away. If anything, they’re a preview of what’s to come. Carriers have discovered that fees tied to disruption – whether it’s fuel, zones, or seasonal and peak period demand – are more lucrative than flat rate hikes.

And if you think about it, this is part of the same pattern we’re seeing across global trade. Tariffs. Fuel volatility. Port congestion. Extreme weather.

Every disruption becomes a toll booth where someone collects fees.

The winners aren’t the ones who argue about fairness. The winners build networks flexible enough to reroute, diversify and keep goods flowing. Good companies, like good hockey teams, can kill a lot of those penalties.

Great teams, on the other hand, know how to avoid the penalty box altogether. And that’s what Tompkins Ventures Partners can bring to your table.

This holiday season, you can’t control FedEx and UPS. But you can control how your company prepares. You can forecast weekly instead of quarterly. You can build optionality into your carrier mix. You can manage volumes so promotions don’t backfire.

Most importantly, your supply chain pros don’t have to do it alone. Tompkins Ventures and our partners can help you escape the penalty box of peak season surcharges.

Reach out and discover how your company can stay on the ice, keep goods moving, protect margins and win the game.

Related Reading

• Simplifying and Saving through Freight Audit and Payment
• Only the Right Packaging Solution Really Delivers
• Top 5 Reasons Your Freight Bills Need Post-Auditing