When my boyfriend and I go out to eat, if he pays with his credit card, he always tips an odd amount in order to make the total check come out even, ie. if the bill is $29.15 he’d tip $6.85 so it would come out at a round $36.
It seems like maybe this could be neutral, or maybe it’s a big pain for the server to deal with all that change, and he should stop this practice.
So, those of you have worked for tips: would this have bothered you, or not?
As long as it’s a reasonable percentage of the total bill, it’s a non-issue. Credit card tips are totalled up and paid from the register in one lump sum at the end of the night. Besides, given the amount of change you scrape off tables in any given night, a little more doesn’t make that big a difference. Let me put it to you another way, I saved most of the change I collected waiting tables one summer and fall and financed almost all my Christmas shopping with it, and less than a dollar of that a shift was from credit card tips.
It never bothered me personally, but I always found it to be a mildly humorous habit. Unless the credit card is being used SOLELY for eating out, the practice makes no sense. When you use the same credit card to buy, say, a shirt at the Gap, and the total bill comes to $18.43, do you add a tip for the store to get the bill to an even $19?
It did annoy me, because I’d have to walk out with the change in my pocket at the end of the night. And as LifeonWry points out, it’s silly.
I am a bartender and I am grateful for all tips. However if you don’t tip well at least the customary 15%, I am liable to think you are either cheap or retarded . . . .
$6.85 on a $29.00 tab? Nope, not a problem at all. Thank you very much, sir and madam, I hope you have a pleasant evening. Come back again soon!
Large amounts of change might be kind of a pain, but $.85 is pretty close to being a dollar. Who was it who said, “A million here, a million there - pretty soon it starts adding up to real money”?
I just put a round number on the bottom line and make them do subtraction. So on a $28.58 tab, I might put $34.00.
For all those servers who think it is silly, I’ll be happy to stop it. My general rule for good service is to figure 20% (more for great service), then round up the change to the next dollar so my bill is an even dollar amount.
It may be 10¢, it may be 90¢. Whatever it is, you’re getting that amount over what is already considered a good tip – so shut yer yaps. 
Well, when you factor in the CC interest, it’ll end up an odd number anyway.
But as far as change, I was a hostess at this one restaurant, and the waitstaff would bring me their change to be consolidated into bills. Are there places that won’t let you do that?
Rilchiam’s comment made me realize that the situation might have been slightly different in the places where I worked. At an upscale restaurant where I worked, most people paid with credit cards and we rounded off the bill when people paid with cash. So I wouldn’t have to deal with change, until someone came in who had this silly habit. The other place I worked was also fairly upscale and we rounded off prices to nearest half-dollar. I might walk out with two quarters, because quarters are not annoying.
This attitude that servers should be happy with whatever they get is crap. We’re not panhandlers, you know - we’re working for a living, and your tips are in place of a decent wage. How would you like it if one day your boss decided to start paying you in dimes, nickels, and pennies?
The bottom line is that there’s no reason why the customer would want the total to be a round number, but there is a reason why a server might want her tip to be a round number.
But with credit card tips, aren’t they all just consolidated? So, at the end of the night, if twelve people left .99 in their tips, you would get .88 in addition to the bills, not 36 quarters, 24 dimes, and 48 pennies, right?
So, you’re really complaining about less than a dollar’s worth of change per day, to which I can say that I would have no problem dealing with. I’d just pay for things with exact change a little more often.
That’s not true. When I’ve finished my meal I want to get the hell out. No offence or anything, it’s just that when I’m full I don’t like to sit there feeling bloated. I need to get up and walk it off. I’ve left multiple dollars [plus the change] over a 20% tip because I didn’t have any singles, and I didn’t want to wait for the change.
I never thought it was that big of a deal.
So don’t pay interest on your CC.
I never minded change. Money is money. If a server doesn’t like it, they’re welcome to give back the change.
For a $6.85 tip I will come in and serve you the pizza!
I don’t care about change… the small stuff I throw in the cookie jar and cash in every 3 months or so…
the quarters I use to pay on my home equity loan… 60 dollars in quarters two months ago…makes the tellers roll their eyes and moan but hey money is money…
Melandry with a tipper like your bf I would make sure that pizza got there HOT, FAST and with extras…cheese, sauces, napkins, whatever his little heart desired
Especially if you’re using a corporate credit card, it’s a lot easier to just fill in the total. Eg, the bill is $28.50, I’ll just write in a total of say $35 and not even fill in the tip amount
when i worked as a server, i saved every bit of change, never traded it in for bills. i threw it in a jar in the server station so i didnt jingle when i walked. after 6 years, it paid for a day at disney world.
I once gave back the 35-cent tip from a $30 check.
Well now that’s entirely different, isn’t it Rilch?
Yes, it is. Just, the way you phrased your sentence called that incident to mind.
Give me a break. What I said was this: If you get a GOOD tip, you should be happy with it. Or am I going way out on a limb to assume you like being tipped well?
Also, before you continue with your server melodrama, keep in mind that I waited tables in the past so I’m not just speaking out of left field here.