Tipping is an insidious practice, and no you shouldn’t be doing it in airport lounges. One Mile at a Time says that while tipping is “never expected” in airport lounges, it is “appreciated” for some services and helps underpaid workers.
He does recognize that it’s mostly foreigners tipping in U.S. airport lounges, because foreigners just misunderstand the custom and assume you have to tip everywhere in this country. That alone suggests it is not the norm, and that you aren’t expected to tip.
Here are two important things to understand:
- Tipping drives down wages. If a worker needs to earn $20 an hour to make the job worthwhile, the company can pay $20, or they might pay $10 and customers pay $10. Adding in tipping lets the employer pay less while still attracting the employees they need. One hotel group CEO said the quiet part out loud that they needed to convince customers to tip (pay more for their stay) in order to avoid paying higher wages.
- Airport workers don’t receive ‘tipped wages’. Airport workers are generally paid well compared to similar employees doing similar jobs off-airport, and airport minimum wages can be a third or even more above the minimum wage generally. Rather than receiving below minimum wage (with the employer making up the difference if tips do not), the so-called ‘tipped wage’, workers at the airport receive more than the local minimum wage before tips.
Lucky says you can tip $1 – $3 per drink at an airport lounge bar, and that “some people who choose to sit at the bar in an airport lounge may just tip $20 upfront, and then they get amazing service the entire time. I’m not saying people should do that, but it is a common practice.”
Centurion Lounge Bar
He also says to consider tipping for a sit-down meal. He’ll “generally tip $10-20” or “around 20% of what I think a meal like that would cost in a restaurant outside an airport.” This is the wrong way to think about it.
When American introduced their Flagship First Dining product I asked an airline Senior Vice President and was told in unequivocal terms that tipping should not be done there because it’s considered ‘an extension of the cabin’ where the practice is expressly forbidden.
American Airlines Flagship First Dining DFW
He’s absolutely correct about Priority Pass restaurants, something that will become less of a thing with Chase-issued cards losing access to dining credits July 1 joining American Express and Capital One’s consumer product. While the arguments against the practice overall are similar, the norm is to tip in restaurants, and Priority Pass is just a payment method.
However I think a bit more nuance is required when talking about lounge spa treatments, where he’ll “usually tip $5-10 for a mini-treatment. I try to think of how much a similar treatment would cost if paying cash, and then use the same 20% tipping rule.”
- American Express says that tipping at Centurion lounge bars and spas is permitted, but not expected.
- Qantas offers first class lounge spa treatments such as in Sydney. Please don’t bring the U.S. tipping culture to Australia. (When Thai Airways was offering spa services it was similarly culturally inappropriate to tip for those.)
Qantas First Class Lounge Spa, Sydney
There used to be a tipping scam at the LAX Qantas lounge. Shower attendants would place money in the shower rooms, and pick it up as though it were a tip when showing you in. It was fake. As a general rule if you’re showering in an airport, there’s a high likelihood that you’re off of a long haul international flight. It’s included in your ticket price. There’s no expectation that you even have local currency. And therefore there cannot be an expectation that you tip.
American Airlines-British Airways Greenwich Lounge Shower, New York JFK
I understand that tipping is expected for everything now, even buying a bottle of water from a self-checkout machine at the Austin airport and even the website where you book your hotel. That doesn’t mean you should go along with the practice. It doesn’t even mean good service, except when it’s actually a bribe. The U.S. is a high tip and low service culture, doubly so with airlines.
Tipping culture leads to lower worker wages (since the compensation workers demand in exchange for their time gets covered directly by the customer, the employer can offer lower pay rates and still attract workers). And it means a more inconsistent, less reliable paycheck. This must end.
We can’t upload images in comments, but check out this tip screen: 20%, 30%, 50%, or 100%?
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/montoyanyc_in-the-year-of-our-lord-2023-this-is-what-activity-7123684583706873858-hQcI/
The reason tipping hasn’t ended is because the average tip is actually completely outrageous. You and I might tip 20% on a restaurant bill, but every now and then there’s somebody “feeling generous” and tipping 200% or more. This often is done in cash resulting in income tax evasion.
Bottom line is that any good service provider stands to lose a ton of money if we shifted from a tipping culture to one where a 20% service charge was just added to every bill.
As to airline lounges, it doesn’t matter what the SVP who is probably out of touch is telling you. What’s the norm? Clearly Ben Schlappig is right on the money: a few bucks per drink is appropriate. If you don’t tip at all, you’re not committing as big of a faux pas in an airline lounge as you would be at an ordinary bar or restaurant. But, if you don’t want to tip, don’t order a drink. Simple as that. Pour yourself a soda or water from the Coke Freestyle machine.
Well Gary , I am disabled , and I really do appreciate it if someone really helps me , in appreciation . It would be cold of me to not tip real helpfulness . I will offer a good tip to an individual FA, but frequently they insist on not receiving it . In Japan , of course , there is no tipping at all , because it is their culture . It all depends on the situation .
Flight attendants can be fired at many airlines for accepting..
I don’t tip at airports in high-income countries unless it’s for a restaurant or service that I would tip for outside the airport while in the same country. But in low-income and mid-income countries I sometimes do tip at airports.
I rarely tip at airport lounges. If the times I can recall tipping at lounges at airports, it was when using government VIP lounges in LDCs and at the Thai first class lounge at BKK back in the day where the drinks and food on order kept flowing to my heart’s content.
I am on record as being quite opposed to the American tipping culture, for which I have been excoriated by some here. Too bad, so sad.
I was born in England but have lived in the USA for 40 years, so I probably still carry English attitudes to tipping from when I left. 10% should be adequate. I have traveled extensively and have never found another culture with either the same expectation of gratuities, or their magnitude. But… it’s a monster of our own making.
I generally do tip bartenders at airline clubs a few dollars as it seems to affect the pours. I advise against tipping large sums unless you are aware of when shift changes are.
How many of those large tips are reimbursed by business expense accounts, and aren’t from the average person not on business travel?
Throwing a buck into the jar that is put out for the lady making guacamole in an Admiral’s Club lounge seems okay. After all, nobody has to take what she’s making fresh. But someone mentioned income taxes, and the problem here is that the feds do tax bartenders, wait persons, etc. on what it is calculated that they make in tips. So not giving something means the server is paying the difference. A lousy situation I know, but I don’t see the IRS making an exception for airport lounge workers. That would open the door to many other groups doing similar work.
Woofie,
If you’ve lived in the U.S. for 40 years then you’re aware of what low wages tipped employees are paid by their employee. Therefore by tipping 10% just shows you are a person most people do not want to be around. When in Rome . . .
10% tips used to be the norm in the US for a very long time and was the traditional amount. Now it’s gotten very out of control where even 15% is looked at as being wrong. What’s wrong is tipping culture and the labor cost dumping that is represented by workers being dependent upon customer tips instead of on just wages.
@Gary: Not tipping at airport lounges might make the airline pay bartenders more. And then would also make them cut back on food/drink options to pay for it.
I religiously tip $1/drink in airline lounges. It has engendered good relationships with the bartenders at the airports I frequent, tends to cut my trips to the bar down by a third, and reduces my wait time. I also prefer having bartenders who would likely not be attracted to the job by the untipped wage alone.
I think your sentiment is right but without a viable solution it’s just complaining. Do you have any viable solutions? I wish I did but short of some draconian national law I don’t see any mechanism to make tipping a thing of the past.
I do not tip in US, regardless of the place, rather would join the conversation with a manager why they do not pay decent salary for their emplyees. Those who say “When Rome..”, tip is suppoused to be paid for something above and beyond, not for the employee primary obligations he/she was hired for.
USA is manufactured spending society. Following the laws is a huge bullshit, only the words. Want to see if that day comes when companies stop hiring illegal undocumented intruders and will hiring only legal documented residents as per law. The Southern border is widely open for anyone but those government morons worry about the liquids on the hand luggage and what is inside of the shoes.
Trump became the POTUS because the society slogan is “There is no business like show business”, although he is better than any Democrat by internal politics, internationally everyone sucks.
@Gary – I guess the stereotype of Jews being cheap is applicable to you. Always tip $1-$3 for a drink in an airport lounge and $10-$20 for a massage treatment. Why are you so cheap?
I was in Australia and life was ao much simple. No tipping anywhere.
We need to end this disease. Ot does not help when people like you go around and set the expectation that 20 dollar tip upfront is a good way tomgo. What a load of croc!
If you can’t afford to leave a couple of bucks at an airport lounge to help out a working person then go downstairs and eat at McDonalds. Don’t pull this nonsense about it lowering wages, that’s just an excuse for people to feel good about being cheapskates. Anyone who has actually worked for a living and have moved up in life through hard work understand this. The ones who don’t get it are the self entitled folks whose mom and dad paid for their college education and moved into middle level management right after graduation, and then were promoted by their peers who share the same self centered beliefs that they do. Luckily those types are easily replaceable, as was proved in 2008 and will be proved once again very soon. If you don’t believe me ask any self made business owner if tipping is a bad idea, I bet you 99-1 they will disagree with the premise of this article.
As pointed out a few times, AC is a foreign bot. Please ban it.
@ Gary — I am opposed to a lot of tipping, but why call someone out for being more generous? If Ben wants to tip generously, he shouldn’t be shamed for it.
Gene, Gary has covered your question in depth; please re-read the article. Most importantly, when people provide tips, they’re basically contributing to the suppression of those workers’ wages over time.
I don’t mind tipping for good service. It must be earned.
I recall years ago when I frequented bars in my younger years, that, all of a sudden, bartenders expected a tip when they uncapped a bottle of beer. No glass or napkin. That’s ridiculous.
To those of us not raised in the US, tipping is insidious because we are compelled to contribute to a dysfunctional employment contract we have no understanding of. If Americans want to legislate that workers are mistreated by employers because strangers feel compelled to not only pay the business/employer for services but also the business’s employees, then perhaps guests in their country should be excused from the whole scam.
AC should do herself/himself/themself/itself a favor and try to get educated until no longer buying and peddling lazy-minded stereotypes about cultures and religious traditions which are more diverse within than across different cultures and religious traditions.
Generosity and donating are part and parcel of the culture of each Abrahamic religion, and Judaism is no exception.
I just recalled that my most common tipping at airport lounges used to be a dollar or two when using the “free” drink chits which I used to get from the Admirals Clubs in the US and use to get bottles of water to take with me to the flights. It wasn’t much of a tip each time, but in the aggregate that alone would have to measure in the thousands of dollars in tips at US airports. Thinking of it now, it seems like a big waste of money and a lot of plastic waste but I did get some very interesting conversations with some of those AA lounge bartenders who were providing me bottles of water for those drink chits.
How much to tip? I suggest that those who give extra large tips may be using company expense accounts, for which they are reimbursed.
Of the large and small employers whose reimbursement procedures I have seen in my time, most times the accounting department or other “responsible” parties would just approve expense reimbursement for the full value of the receipt and of the charge on the company card statement without stripping out the tip portion for reimbursement even when the systems have a separate tip field that can be used.
At least some OPM tippers have “over-tipped” to either try to “get lucky” with “the staff” or to pad the income of a friend or relative at their own employer’s or client’s expense. Never underestimate the presence and willingness of some people to cheat the tax authorities, cheat their employers/clients, or cheat both simultaneously by way of reimbursement/expensing practices being exploited by scammer employers and scammer employees.
I love this sentence in the article, ” The U.S. is a high tip and low service culture, doubly so with airlines” because it is absolutely true.
“I think your sentiment is right but without a viable solution it’s just complaining. Do you have any viable solutions?”
100% correct on this point. That’s the problem that Gary seems to have when he posts on the point of tipping. At the end of the day, what is realistic alternative or solution?
Since he brought up hospitality, that field has a very long and notorious history of low pay that’s not going to go away overnight or honestly, ever. Why? Because those jobs are bottom of the barrel hell holes that literally anyone can do. People in that industry aren’t “demanding” anything. They’re taking whatever the employer (franchisee owner/management company) is offering, end of story. From the employer’s standpoint, it’s basically, if you can’t rock me – somebody will.
The pandemic already having permanently riffed many jobs, along with what AI is doing and continued app usage/integration…wages aren’t going up because the employer knows that as more and more jobs are eliminated, the people who “need” to be in that industry will be more than happy to take whatever because their job might be next on the chopping block. With that being the playing field, what short of forced legislation is going to make an employer ever pay their staffs more when very clearly, they don’t have to or need to?
Of course hardcore Republican conservative Gary Leff is against tipping and uses the political gaslighting argument of it “driving down wages” while talking out of the other side of his mouth arguing for Byzantine anarchist libertarian concepts constantly, union busting, and advocating for lowest salaries possible for his own Texas convenience to keep costs and tAxEs lOw.
I think the elephant in the room is the huge average wealth disparity across that counter in the lounge. The AVERAGE person with access to a lounge is much wealthier than the AVERAGE service worker in the lounge. Suppose minimum wage for those workers is $20 an hour — that’s $40k a year. How many folks sitting at the lounge bar are making 2x, 3x, 5x that? That’s why I tip — basically, I think $5 is way more meaningful to the service worker than it is to me.
@Mike Kelly – if your goal is to address wealth inequality this hardless seems an efficient mechanism
Airport workers are also usually union, so their pay and benefits are already quite generous.
If you can’t afford to pay your employees, you shouldn’t be in business. You should be embarrassed that they’re begging your customers for money. A customer shouldn’t be bullied and shamed into paying twice for the same service.
I live in expensive CA. The CA min wage for *all* employees (including waitstaff) is $16/hr. But local counties/cities (like San Jose) have their own higher min wage (like $17.50/hr-$17.75/hr). Add to that CA just started a $20/hr with yearly increases for ‘fast food’ employees. In the midst of all that, and big cost increases for the food, we have many mandatory (often hidden) fees that are tacked onto our food checks, ranging from 3%-20% (’employee health fee’, ‘COVID fee’, ‘cost of living fee’, ‘takeout fee’, ’employee fee’, ‘we love our employees fee’, ‘it’s expensive to do biz in CA fee’, etc). I am NOT kidding about that. And now with handheld payment systems, these fees are often hidden (just your total bill in shown). I’ve been burned a few times where they added their desired tip onto that total and I didn’t know, and tipped ON TOP of that! Of course those handheld payment things don’t print out your receipt, you had to ask for it specially before you paid, and then again, it just has the total. I realized once (when totals didn’t seem right, but I was with friends and didn’t want to spend time figuring it out), that I tipped 40%-50% over the bill amount. Yeah, that was really stupid, I knew something was wrong but the waitstaff ran away & hid after I paid and of course didn’t offer to give me a receipt. I don’t eat out much anymore, and am much more careful now. I want to see the entire bill with each charge/fee/tax itemized before I pay. If I see an ’employee cost of living fee’ of 5%-10%, or a tip already put in, I’m not tipping you another 20% for your poor service. A restaurant made the news once because they had a mandatory 18% tip automatically applied for parties of 1 or more (haha, yeah, not just for big parties of 6-8 or more, for EVERYONE). If people didn’t realize this or see, then those waitstaff got a huge tip.
Sorry for this rant, and it wasn’t specifically dining at airports/lounges, but it really pressed my buttons.
Gary, I’d like you to do a story on some new bill/law that passed, supposedly starting July 1 that mandates all fees are transparently shown in advance, you can’t tack on all these fees at the end at checkout or after the fact (like dining). Not just some small print saying we charge 20% for takeout hidden in a back corner of the menu (that isn’t even told to you if you call in for a takeout order), but full on before you order. Restaurants sued for an injunction/exemption to this rule, but some judge just threw it out and said restaurants must comply too (along with hotels, car rental, ticketmaster, etc). Or I may be getting this law all muddled up, but I would love to see this become reality. But hahaha, there’s probably an exception made for airports & concessionaires at venues/amusement parks (gotta love those lobbyists). It has gotten completely out of hand. A $20 listed price for a lunch ends up costing $30-$40 with all the crap taxes/fees piled on.
Blame always the clients who do not tip but never the business owners who do not pay a proper salary but yet earning decent profits!?
Something is seriously wrong at the root level. Fortunately only in USA. Do not spare the cancer of your society throughout the World. Already enough consequences of exporting your “democracy” to Iraq, Libya, Syria and Afganistan.
Oh, and hahaha speaking about the $20/hr CA fast food min wage. CA airport unions representing airport fast food employees *wanted an exemption to these wage laws*. Why? Because the unions were afraid the law would shackle/impact their attempts/negotiations at setting wage & benefits for airport employees (ie they already make more than that and/or expect to make more than that in near future).
I have no problem tipping but I do think aspects of it have gotten out of control. For one, I am seeing tip options pop up on credit card terminals at far more types of stores that seem a bit silly. Almost all fast food places now have tip options which is lame. However, the one that annoys me most that I am seeing more and more is that the pre-populated option on the card terminal starts at 20% and I have seen a few start at 22%. That is ridiculous.
@Christopher Raehl — Honestly, if you’re tipping only a buck a drink at an airport lounge, the server is probably laughing at you. When I’m in a Centurion Lounge, I’d say the average tip I see at the bar is 5 bucks. Personally, I hate it. I was in their Philly lounge the other month and, right below the bar, there was a basket (of sorts) where the bartenders were throwing the tips into. It looked like hundreds of dollars.
For me, a bar drink isn’t worth 5 bucks. If I had to pay that, I”d grab a water. Since I’m not going to tip 5 bucks, I tend to just order a beer or wine (15 seconds of effort) and not tip. The bartenders can think whatever they want of me. I’m just not going to play this over-tipping game. I hope most people agree, and this nonsense stops.
OH, sorry. The law going into effect 7/1/24 prohibiting drip pricing is only in CA. Probably because CA has SO MANY of these (attempted hidden) drip fees.
‘A new California law aimed at banning hidden service fees could eliminate the surcharges some restaurants add to customer bills. Diners in San Francisco often think twice when they see a common line at the bottom of their menu warning of a mandatory service charge that can run anywhere between 4% to 20%.
‘The law seeks to prohibit “the use of drip pricing, a practice in which companies advertise only a portion of what a customer would actually pay for a certain product or service,” according to a published release. The CA law taking effect on July 1 bans junk fees commonly seen in ticket sales. But on Tuesday, the state attorney general reportedly confirmed that also applies to restaurant service fees.
‘”The law does not ban companies from setting a price, but it does regulate how companies can advertise or display the cost,” the press release added.
The tipping culture in USA is out of control. I refuse to blindly tip a cashier or checkout person as if I’m expected to do so. I do not tip in airport lounges, if it is expected of me the lounge would have said so. It is those people who tip that has corrupted the culture causing servers to expect one and employers to therefore paying less.
Airport lounges are not like restaurants that need your business in order to survive, airport lounges are in the service industry therefore their pay structure is different and the people that work there are paid more than a restaurant server or a bartender.
No one should tell me how to tip and tipping does not reduce wages, as we have seen in my communist land of California. Tipping is also not a vehicle for tax evasion either. Some pretty ignorant comments on this board.
Now don’t get me wrong. I despise tips as much or more than the next guy, and would prefer the USA be like Japan where tipping is insulting and employees don’t rely on the whims of customers for comp. That said…
It’s a bar. The fact that it happens to be located in a not-so-exclusive club is irrelevant. Yes the minimum wages are high but in high cost areas (SFO, JFK, DCA) these wages barely pay rent. Most travelers in clubs are not starving students and can easily afford to tip. If it was any other bar in the airport you know damn well you would be expected to tip and more like 20% to boot.
So I leave $1 per alcoholic drink. Sometimes $5 if I don’t have any 1s but then I expect that will cover multiple rounds. Leaving tips for soft drinks is more debatable. While I would normally do this at a neighborhood bar I resent the fact that the airline does not install self serve options which are prevalent in many lounges. So I don’t always tip for soft drinks. Hypocritical? You betcha.
@ The Old Goat- almost no company includes tips in the covered reimbursable amounts. Many don’t even include alcohol unless it is directly related to business development and only in some companies. If you are on a set per diem rate- then conceivably you can use that set amount to cover tips but that would be a personal decision and would take away from the amount you have to pay for meals and other incidentals.
Overall I agree with Gary re the tipping culture- countries where it doesn’t exist are far more pleasant to visit for me since I know that the employer is paying a living wage and not letting employees rely on inconsistent tipping of patrons. I think the US could easily fix this by introducing a realistic national minimum wage based on actual living costs in each state, i.e. have the law require each state set minimum wage at X percent of average wage or require each state sets its own living wage based on realistic numbers.
This has nothing to do with anything other than being human beings that believe everyone deserves a living wage and should have zero to do with politics.
Tipping has turned into just another scam. Airport lounges are no exception.