Of course you tip your hair cutter!
Good rule of thumb - tip anyone that does something for you (service) if they don’t seem to be making large sums of money (haircutters, van drivers, etc.)
I especially tip nicely on people I see regularly (My haircutter gets $5 per visit on a $13 charge)…I want these people to be at least somewhat happy to see me come in. 
Usually a dollar a bag; more if the hotel is far from the airport.
Yeah, I’ve seen tip cups in some really unlikely locations; carry-out Chinese and fast food restaurants, ice cream parlors, and the like. A buck for the guy who chops up your food at the Mongolian buffet? I dunno.
I drove a hotel shuttle van for a few years and I’d say I was tipped at least 80-90% of the time. Enough so that I noticed when I wasn’t tipped. Tips usually fell in the $1-2 per person range. Sometimes more if a person had a lot of bags. Most I ever got was $20, but that was for a huge family w/ a LOT of bags. $5 tips were normal enough that they didn’t stand out.
Now that I travel myself, I always tip shuttle drivers. I do notice that I’m usually the only person in the van that does, though.
I want them to be so happy to see me that they’ll tip me.
This is why I hate tipping. The hotel shuttle bus driver?? Who’d have thought that would be a tipping situation? When I’m traveling, I’ve got enough to keep track of, without having to determine whether random services constitute tipping situations, and making some guess at the appropriate tip.
And thinking about it, I’m thinking no, this one isn’t a tipping situation, unless one is so inclined.
By comparison, I tip skycaps in the airport for hauling my bags from the rental car garage to the baggage check-in line. And if I’m in a hotel where bellhops put your bags on a cart at the front desk (or even better, put your bags on a cart when you pull up in your car) and haul them up to your room, I tip. In both cases, somewhere around $2-2.50/bag, depending on what bills I’ve got and how many bags there were.
Compared to that, taking a bag off the pavement and putting it in the courtesy van’s luggage area is pretty small potatoes. Hell, I’ve already done at least that much lifting and carrying with my bag several times over by then.
Yea…but that won’t happen with me…cuz I aint the most interesting man alive (though I do like Dos Equis).
Would that include checkout clerks ?
I really find that, around here, people are poor enough that tipping doesn’t really happen often, except for waitstaff at restaraunts. (Around here, Applebees is considered high-priced dining.)
No…they are doing a service for the store.
As do I, for the same reason. It’s also a good way for me to alleviate my guilt over keeping him after a long day.
No, although I am far more likely to tip cashiers at independent bakeries (for example) than franchises. I think that this is common among Americans, am I far off the mark?
Tipping cashiers??? :eek: Good Lord! It really has gotten out of hand since I left America.
If the driver gets out of the seat and helps load bags onto the shuttle, and then helps take them off - sure, if they are pleasant while doing so, even more so.
If they sit behind the wheel like a knot on a log - Hell no
Thanks for the input, everyone. I guess I’ll tip if the guy helps me with my bags . . . one more reason to travel light. 
The Sheraton in Reston, VA, has a sign along the lines that the shuttle is complementary, but the drivers appreciate gratuities. For a ride to the office I tip $2 and to the airport I tip $5. Given that my alternative would be taxis, it’s a bargain.
Edited to add: No bags to the office of course, and one suitcase to the airport.
And the porter, waiter etc. is merely someone who happens to be hanging around a place of work ?
So that if that actually do something like carrying your bags or serving you your meal then they are in fact not doing it as part of their employment but as a personal favour for you.?
Recently in the U.S. after getting routinely peed off by staff pestering me instead of allowing me to enjoy my meal or whatever in peace,I experimented by tipping them at the start instead of at the end of their service.
The tips were quite generous by American standards.
Result ?
I found it very difficult to have even my basic needs attended to.
I believe in tipping for better then normal service but tipping in the U.S. is at an unhealthy level.
And it doesn’t enhance the tourists holiday enjoyment by the begging notices that seem to be posted in every shuttle, diner, you name it.
Please give our staff money because we don’t.
I don’t tip them, but once one of them helped retrieve me cellphone, and I did tip him!! I think if they do something special then it would be nice to tip them. But normally no.
Someone carrying my bags I would tip. The cashier? No. He’s not doing me any service…he’s taking my money! Just like the hotel front desk…I don’t tip them, that is where I go to pay the bill.
As for tipping to get better than normal service…
For one offs it’s not going to work. You tip them because, well you are a gentleman (or a lady). It’s crass to not tip them. Like it or not, American culture has tipping and yes, you are in fact, paying their wages. The store/business isn’t paying them enough and you are making up for it.
However, I argue that this IS a better way to do it. If you suck at your job, you will get less tips and that will encourage you to find a different job. If you are great at your job, you will be rewarded. This way I have some control over how much the employee makes…and I think that is more efficient and better overall than the business raising prices and paying better.
Back to one offs and getting great service. In order for this to work it has to be at a place where you revisit frequently and/or you will be staying awhile. You also need to tip above the norm to be recognised.
Say your haircutter - you go to one you haven’t been at before, leave a nice tip and never return…you won’t see any above average service. You go back for your 50th haircut tipping nicely every time…then yes, you should.
Say you go to a bar with your buddies to eat and play darts or whatever. The place is busy. The waitress comes over, you joke with her, order a couple pitchers of beer, she comes back and you tip her $10 (say a 50%+ tip). You can bet your ass you will be kept track of better to see if you want more.
If you do not - then you should still tip because you have class. However it should be an average tip. For above average tips you want above average service.
Tipping in the US is way out of hand. But I do tip the shuttle bus. I sometimes travel for business, usually to the same destination for weeks/months at a time. A shuttle to/from the airport, and often to/from the client site saves my client significant $$ on rental expenses. Plus, the staff recognizes me and you tend to get little niceties that you might not otherwise get.
Most of the hotel staff is likely working for crap wages and minimal benefits. The $2/ride will go farther for them then for me.
ETA: I stopped tipping for room service though. Most hotels add a gratuity plus a delivery charge as is. Frigging ridiculous to add even more. Though if I make the delivery person run around more than one trip, I’ll slip him or her something.
I work at a ski resort and our bell service guys are the ones who run the airport shuttles – they do the stuff like loading and unloading your luggage, besides the more traditional getting it to your room for you and running random errands. And yes, tipping is normal for them. They do pretty well in tips, I hear. It’s not an easy job – not technically complicated, but there’s a lot of slinging heavy stuff around. They work hard.
I’m in reservations and have never gotten a monetary tip, but I’ve gotten a few thank you notes and small gifts – one guy last week said he’d bring me chocolate because I found a better package for him than the one he had booked, I assumed he was mostly joking, and much to my surprise, when I got back from my weekend, there it was on my desk. Yum! I don’t expect it but when it happens, it’s nice. I would never expect a tip either where I am or at the front desk, though. It wouldn’t make sense.
Cashier was a bad choice of term. I assume that you tip Bartenders, what about baristas? Coffee drinks can be far more involved than a lot of bar drinks.