I hate tipping because of the frictions. You don’t know what you’re supposed to tip, it’s ambiguous. You’re supposed to have cash? It’s so much better when employees are compensated by their employers and listed prices are the amounts you actually pay.
- If tipping is supposed to ensure better service, why is it such a bad customer experience?
- And why is it so opaque what happens to the money?
- Are you expected to tip where there’s already a service charge? Sometimes that money is the tip. Other tips the business keeps the service charge. You can ask, but that’s awkward, and you may not get a straightforward answer.
What about tip inflation? When I was growing up 15% of the pre-tax amount of a meal was standard and now I often hear 20% of the total including tax. And now it’s tipping not just a few bucks for pizza delivery, but 20% of the total meal price. And tips when you’re picking up the food to go (since ‘someone still had to package it’).
I stayed at a hotel property that adds a service charge to all food and beverage bills, and it seems like that money is split out across staff, while tips are delivered to the staff who have served you. I think. At least that’s what I’ve been able to suss out.
Do I really need to suss this out, though? On my vacation? Tipping can induce fear and anxiety in travelers.
That’s why I think it’s so strange that hotels, where are supposed to take care of their guests, are often ground zero in tipping confusion. Shouldn’t hotels tell you what is expected? Or better yet, just make it easier at least include tipping in the resort fee or the venue fee on top of the resort fee.
- If you order room service, food is brought to your room, that’s a service. Room service generally has a service charge. Great problem solved!
- Or is it? You’re asked to sign for the meal, and there’s usually a line to add a tip. Does the service charge have you covered, or is the hotel pocketing that and you’re expected to tip again?
Here’s one of the simplest things a hotel can do. It’s a line from the menu at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress in Orlando near Disney World back when they used to offer room service: the service charge includes gratuity.
The simple solution, for hotels that don’t do this, is to ask the person delivering your meal whether or not they’re taken care of by the service charge? That should solve for any ambiguity.
However hotels should just list all-in prices, or at least state explicitly “we are adding a service charge to your bill but that covers the wages we’re paying, and is not a gratuity” or “we are adding a service charge, which goes to the staff who prepared and delivered your food.”
Either way, tell guests exactly what to expect, and what is expected.
The worst is the Hyatt Regency LAX (I have written to Gary about this before). There is an undisclosed service charge; as a Hyatt Globalist you don’t know what this is. It turns out that the hotel staff are unionized and the union agreement has negotiated (very low) charges for breakfast. So its absolutely impossible to know whether or what to tip.
“Service Charge” is just termonology for another way to rip people off. It adds nothing of value to what is being purchased – it only increases the cost.
I always get a chuckle (a sardonic chuckle BTW) when I see ANY business talk about or champion their “service/customer experiences” when it is well known – and many times well documented – that a “positive customer/service experience” is about the last thing you can expect from this business. May I suggest that delivering a positive travel/dining experience can be first achieved by the business dropping the attitude that deleting services, creating opaqueness while heralding transparency and communicating through actions and/or deeds that the customer is one of the lesser components to a shareholder first business model. “Fake” customer/service experiences have seem to become the norm. Businesses have learned that talking about customer service business value is an acceptable substitute over delivering a “real” customer/service experience.
Years ago on one of my first trips to England I left a tip at the bar when paying for our meals and drinks and the bartender came over to our table and said you left your money at the bar. I explained it was a tip and he said. You do not tip in England as we are paid living wages that includes benefits. (it’s so nice to live in first world countries)
When the Covid pandemic hit the US the restaurant industry lobbied Congress to subsidize the meager unemployment benefits that servers and other tip dependent employees were getting. No one said yes that is the unemployment compensation you deserve because you had limited reported wages. Again we (our government) caved to lobbying and boosted compensation instead of saying get a real job that has benefits where you real earnings are reported and you pay taxes on those wages and you then EARN your social security and unemployment benefits.
As Nancy said “just say no” when solicited for tips and try and avoid such 3rd world companies.
the other fun thing about room service is that the exact same food is often much cheaper if you go to the restaurant yourself (including if you order take out and pick it up yourself) – so not only are you paying a premium for in-room service, but a service charge AND then they want a tip….. NO WAY
… I have even stayed at a few places where the delivery portion sizes are much smaller.
… even if OPM is has gotten out of control – hard pass
Valets confuse me. I’m paying 85 dollars for my car to be parked but am I expected to hand two people 5 dollars each on top of this? I literally don’t know but it seems crazy
We just stayed at the Hampton in Berry Farms, TN for the Christmas holidays as we have stayed there several times this year alone. AFTER we checked in, the front desk clerk said, “I see you’ve stayed here before. Do you know that we now charge $5 a night charge for parking”? No, I didn’t know that and, no, it wasn’t disclosed when I made the reservation on-line. Then, as you walk to the elevator, there were at least five signs asking us to scan the code to add a tip to the staff. The staff who we were told were only available to service our room twice during our seven day stay. Guess where we won’t be staying the next time we go to the Franklin area?
Just tell me what the total charge will be and I’ll decide whether to stay there or not. So frustrating!
Gary,
Your comments are very typical, mostly in the States. What corporate America won’t do is what you exactly ask. Designed to baffle and bullshit you. And it’s working. You are being guilt tripped to death.
Two things I know while now living in Malta. Western European companies are required to pay a living wage, give paid vacations, education benefits, pensions, and health care. They do Not expect you to tip unless it is out of the ordinary. And the rightly assume most tips come from Americans
And in America you are shamed to tip because companies won’t offer what heir coolegues in other countries do.
I know that approach works because 10-20% of diners in States tip their waitstaff because they don’t get compensated well. And you feel it’s your job to compensate them.
Get a spine. Better yet, tell the management at threstaurant that you will not patronize them until they better compensate their employees better
Also remember that when pay your bill with your fancy diamond studded studded platinum card, the restaurateur is probably paying the credit card company a higher fee. Good for your rewards but not good for restaurant profitability.
Gary, I wish your “simple solution” would be so simple… Unfortunately it’s not! I can’t begin to count the number of times when a server in an establishment that touts “gratuities are included since we pay a living wage” privately states that an additional tip would be appreciated. Then waits to see if you took the hint. I get it: who doesn’t want additional tax free money? Whether the board or your manager gives you a raise or even if the government refunds some money – you take it. Rarely have I heard of anyone refusing and saying that they have “enough” for their needs. Human nature – until we get rid of humans, we will always be subject to that behavior ….and the line that says tip. Just take solace in that most of our bills (credit cards, utilities, rent, mortgage, loans, etc.) haven’t had that line…..yet!
With hotel room service, especially overseas with value added taxes, often 10-20%, and delivery fees included, it does become confusing. Usually having a few dollars, euros, pounds, etc. is a healthy option to hand to the individual physically delivering the food.
@1990
But you are saying exactly what Gary is saying. Vat is a very good way to pass along all costs along the food chain. Better than U. S. Income tax BUT it also includes the service charge which includes the tip. You are paying effectively twice the tip.
Frankly, I honestly believe people should learn about each countries systems. No hard to learn. When you check into your overseas hotel, ask the concierge or manager about tipping.
Whether through some people’s ignorance about overseas tipping and U. S. restaurants screwing their waitstaff on salary, it is the customer who ultimately gets screwed.
Frankly, I favor Systems that make employers properly pay their staff. I realize this is pet peeve of mine, but American consumers should organize to protest their employee treatment. And stop feeling guilty that you feel responsible to pay American restaurant salaries.
Happy New Year.
The tipping amounts and mechanics in the USA are completely out of control. We all are asked to tip when paying by credit card and we have absolutely no idea how much, how and when any of the tips get to the staff, who presumably we are trying to tip. How much they get we have absolutely no idea. On public holidays the supplement is applied which is presumable to cover increased staff costs and we are expected to tip a percentage on top of that, tax, credit card surcharge and any other fee on the bill. Then the staff pay tax on tips also. The whole system is broken. 20% is outrageous. Bring back the days when we could tip $5 or $10 and feel good about leaving it on the table for the server (assuming service was acceptable). Today I feel awful about tipping excluding the outrageous alcohol amounts charged and rounding down. Why are we even talking about what to tip for – because the whole tipping mechanism is opaque and fraught with misuse by management who collect the credit card payments and may use the tip proceeds how they wish. Broken. Hate it.
. . and before someone has a go at me for excluding alcohol from the tip, restaurants buy it for FAR less than we could dream of paying and yet its on the list for twice as much as we pay for it. So they’re getting 400% markup already. I would tip on the amount they paid but we don’t know. I’m NOT tipping on the marked up exorbitant amount they’re charging me. Also cellared wine was purchased back then for even less than wholesale now, but they’ll charge current aged wine prices because they claim its been cellared. Yes there’s a cost to cellaring but they’ve also gained the distinction and can charge higher prices for the cellared wine than current vintages. So don’t try to convince me I need to tip on top of those gains.
@AlanZ — Well said. I feel fortunate enough to be able to ‘afford’ to tip twice, but I know not everyone can. Owners need to pay their workers a living and ideally thriving wage.
I know bartenders in France. When you tell them how much bartenders, at even hole-in-the-wall places, near me make after tips and net of the taxes (after illegally, now legally, avoiding tax on all tips) the are envious. Please folks, stop the BS that employees in other countries in jobs that would be tipped in the US are getting a “living wage” and the tired US ones aren’t. Yes, there are benefits included outside the US that tipped employees in the US don’t get, but that’s true of non-tipped US jobs.
If you know tipped US employees well enough, they will admit that they’d hate it if tips were banned. Their new fixed hourly wage would be less than they average now. This excludes the grossly incompetent few.
The ambiguity is a feature, not a defect.
Or just stop caring so much about what unskilled labor thinks of you, and don’t tip at all. Anyone who gives in to such demands is a cuck. Pretend you’re European if that helps your panic attacks for not adequately pleasuring others. Overt demands for tip receives a reciprocal response from me. I tip 15% still where there’s table service, otherwise usually nothing. Want more? Go to school , or learn a skill.
Thank god it’s not in our (Australian) DNA to tip! This is a well known fact around the western world, so servers etc. know what to expect, or not.
Of course while visiting the US certain service providers may get a tip (not a super-sized one) for good service. Those giving bad service can go whistle!
I admire @Mantis chutzpah!
Of course you’d need to be able to handle the endless outrage, dirty looks and threats that come your way.
“It seems like that money is split out across staff” is the key phrase here. Do hotels, cruise lines, and maybe even restaurants divide up the tips accurately, 100%? I doubt it, but that’s not my problem. Also, if a service fee is required and included with no way to opt out (even with bad service), then it’s just a fee; no tip is needed.
Remember when Uber first started there wasn’t even an option to tip? I used to think this was one of the glorious things about ridesharing: telling me what the charge is & then be done with it.
I remember first learning how to become a worldly sophisticated traveling adult. In other words, I thought that “adulting” was hard. To be taken seriously as an adult as not as a fool, I perused all the tipping etiquette and protocol. Well, that’s all out the window, now.
Some thoughts:
1. Tipping machines and tipping for food I picked up myself at the counter is obscene.
2. Unionized staff don’t deserve tips; but, in circumstances, I tip to avoid mafia-like consequences.
3. Normal public American restaurants tipping inflation is obscene. I remember 15% (in the Stone Age). Now, I try to tip 20%, and I try avoid 25% and 30%.
4. Europeans tend to round up to the nearest Euro. But wait staff expect 30% from Americans, regardless, and it’s hard for me to hide my American appearance.
5. Cruise lines: a huge debate on gratuities for staff. It’s like pay gratuities plus pay handsome tips for superlative client-facing staff.
6. Uber: half the time, I endure the driver’s crybaby story the entire ride. Regardless, I do the lowest recommended tip, just to keep my passenger profile safe. But I really don’t know what the algorithyms do with my tipping profile, and I still get drivers cancelling on me. (I hate Uber, but often there’s no competition.)
6. Yes, current tipping culture is obscene. I tip to avoid mafia organized crime retribution. I tip where I know that the tip actually gives me splendid service. Otherwise, I now act snooty and try to avoid all circumstances where tipping exists, or try to get away with zero tip.
I find it odd that tipping from 15% to 20%+ is justified by “inflation”. The inflation is in the cost of the product or service and the tipping percentage should remain constant, if at all. Just as professionals don’t expect tips neither should those who choose to be in service jobs. I’m not opposed to tipping, 1990, just opposed to it being expected and in the case of “service charges”, demanded.
Easy fix for me: I never tip. At all. For anything.
I dgaf about scowls or perception. I am not your payroll department. Talk to your boss if you’re unhappy with your wage.
Hint: each $0.00 on the tip line is easier than the last.
Question for the “I never tip” crowd … how are you able to dine at the same full-service restaurant more than once or twice? I would imagine that after that you’d get the worst service imaginable, no? Serious question.
Gary – what about the servers who tell you that the service charge doesn’t include the tip, but that it actually does? By lying, they get you to double tip. And is there any downside for that behavior – minimal at best.
It’s a very bad idea to ask the server whether a service charge (or similar fee) includes the tip. Servers lie. In fact, I once overheard an American in Paris ask whether the tip was included. The answer was no, despite the words “service compris” appearing prominently at the bottom of the carte (menu to Americans).
@Mike Hunt
So many full-service restaurants in my town that I rarely need to return. Plus, tip credits aren’t a thing here: everyone earns at least the full minimum state plus city wage, not a reduced tip wage.
@Steve – Interesting. Sounds a lot like Los Angeles. I know that I consciously tip less when I’m there for the exact reasons you’ve cited.
Sheesh, @Steve. How often do you become ‘ill’ after you eat out? Like, even in NYC, where folks do get paid well for the most part, I’m never doing $0.00, especially when paying by card. Word gets out, even in a big city. (‘That guy doesn’t tip…’ *snorts*)
Los Angeles is in California and California has a fairly high minimum wage. Restaurants are required by law to pay at least that fairly high minimum wage ($16.90 now) to all workers, servers included. Further, some large chain restaurants have to pay at least $20 an hour to their servers. This forces other restaurants to compete at the same rate for workers. The workers are doing much better than some of the workers in other states that only have to pay a reduced federal minimum wage to servers with tips making the most of the worker’s earnings. Consider this when tipping because some of what should be tip is already baked into the price of the food. If you have a 20% service charge that goes to the servers and put a tip on top of it, you must prize the food and service very much so don’t complain about how much it cost.