Housekeeping at a hotel gets $5/night. Although last time I was in Vegas I left $20 each night, just because I could and housekeeping are always getting stiffed.
To each his own. I suppose I might feel that way if I felt the whole place was just poorly managed and it was hopeless. If I am in a reputable place but my server shouldn’t be working as a server, I’ll say something. Any manager worth his salt will comp me a dinner to come back and give them a second try. But I am not here to convince everybody they should be like me. I get what you’re saying.
That’s better than pumping it into the slot machines 
Heh. This reminds me of a strip joint way back in West Texas. This old geezer shuffled up to the stage and was going to drop a quarter in the lady’s G-string. Really. She shouted at him that she was “not a goddamned slot machine.”
Thanks to the replies about tipping for hotel maid service. I too did not realize it was a thing until relatively late. But I always do it now, and one time the maid in our hotel in Washington even left us a really nice thank-you note.
I haven’t stayed in hotels much - I traveled a few times for work but I can only recall once or twice that we stayed in a hotel as part of a vacation (as opposed to stopping enroute along the interstate.) I’ve never left a tip for housekeeping because it just never occurred to me. In the future, I’ll make sure I have cash on hand if we stay somewhere. Goodness knows, I appreciate having someone clean up after me - not that I’m all that messy.
A recent podcast I listen to with an executive for Omni hotels mentioned that it’s not an if but a when for a housekeeping fee. I assume that will kill the tipping of hotel housekeeping
I’ve stayed at two hotels in the last two months. Both were two-night stays and In both cases there was no housekeeping. I still left $20 each time because someone will clean the room after I leave and I’m guessing that most people aren’t going to leave anything if there’s no housekeeping during their stay. Housekeeping was already a crap job before Covid and housekeepers had little or no work for for over a year so I figure I might be able to help someone out a bit.
On average I tip 15% at restaurants, even though I live in a province with $15/hr minimum wage so sometimes I feel like I should be tipping a lower percentage, particularly at places with higher prices. It’s often out of laziness as the card machines often have prompts for 15% / 18% / 20%. However, when I do manually enter tip amounts I also like to round the overall value to an even dollar amount (weirdly, I also try to get to an even dollar amount when pumping gas…).
I tend to tip more at mom & pop places, especially “hole in the wall” type places that never seem that busy but where I really like the food. I know some people are of the opinion that you shouldn’t tip owners, but I like to think it’s a pretty direct way of showing support for businesses that I like.
I also depart from the %-based tipping for pub trivia nights and the like where I might only order a drink or two but am there for several hours - it doesn’t really feel right to only tip like $0.60 on a $4 soft drink when the server probably visits me more times than a typical restaurant visit, so I’ll usually still tip $2-5 minimum. It’s one reason that I’ve never liked that the tipping convention is % based - the server doesn’t do anything different if you order a $20 pasta vs. a $50 steak, or a $5 soft drink vs. a $20 ounce of liquor. I suppose it’s just the easiest way to make sure tipping keeps up with inflation, as opposed to something like $1/drink, $3/plate or $5/hr as the standard guidance.
I’ve never done this, so it never occurred to me that a boat crew would be tipped. Do you mind expanding on this a bit? How much does a diving trip cost, how big a crew, % tipped normally etc.? Thanks!
This is me, except I tip cash. Especially the round up part. For instance, I would not leave a $7 tip, I would round that to ten.
My wife and I both have our hair cut by a friend of ours that owns a salon. My wife once a month, me every two or three months. She still charges us her “old” price from 15 years ago. We get her last appointment of the day, she closes when we get there, and we will bring a bottle of wine and each have a glass while getting our hair cut. Or we go out for dinner and pick up the tab.
Hotels, $5 a night. Twenty when I leave. It seems to me to be a hard job and the housekeepers seem to be invisible to most people.
I do this too. I don’t know why. I guess the calculation is easier. Also, I just got in the habit. Here in Brooklyn, there are still plenty of restaurants that don’t take credit cards, so I always figure the tip as if I’m paying cash.
I tip 20%, and add to that if service was especially good. 20% is my baseline – a server would have to fuck up really badly not to get that.
Pretty much the same for takeout.
Hotels, yes, I always leave something for the cleanup staff. And, unfortunately, it looks like business travel is coming back, so I’ll be back in hotels fairly often again.
Sure! In my post, I was referring to day boats in southern California; tropical liveaboards are a bit different. But standard tipping here is $5-10 per tank (i.e. per dive); most are either 2- or 3-tank trips. The pre-tip cost tends to be between $120-200, usually close to $150. A smaller boat carrying a dozen or so passengers might have only 2 crew members; a larger boat carrying 30 or so might have 3-4. My usual pre-pandemic tip was to just toss a $20 in the tip jar every trip, whether it was 2 tanks or 3, and maybe an extra $5 if they did something special for me. But they started running at 50-70% capacity and most didn’t even raise their prices! I guess it helped that initially the cost of fuel went down, but now it’s way, way up again, although they can run at full capacity if they choose. Anyway, I’m now tipping a consistent $40 minimum, up to $60 for above- and-beyond service. (An example of that: they refill your tank between dives on the boat, but you’re expected to show up with a full tank and leave with an empty one. But the boat usually doesn’t get back to port until after the dive shops have closed, and sometimes I want to go diving again early the next morning. I only have one tank, so sometimes I ask the crew if they’re willing to give me another fill at the end. I know they’re busy getting the boat back underway for the return, and I always make it clear I understand if it’s too much. But so far everyone’s obliged, and gotten a little extra love in the jar for their efforts.)
Thanks for all the info. Among other things, I’m surprised 12 people would be small for a dive boat. And I would have never even thought of tipping by tank, I would have thought by crew member. Always nice to learn new things.
I use 20% as a guideline and go up or down (even to none at all) depending on the level of service and what I consider fair pricing of the purchase.
If it’s a small purchase, say a $20 meal and the service was good, I’ll round up to $5. I give my barber $25 for a $17 haircut because to me, he’s underpricing his service. The advantage to this is that if raises the price a couple of dollars, I know my cost is set at $25. If the price hits $20, I’ll up my tip to $10 to give me a good number of years at a consistent price.
If it’s near Christmas or New Year’s , I’ll top additional. Once, at a restaurant I used to go to at weekly, I give the server, who was always really good, $20 on my way out as a Christmas/New Year’s gift. That day I was let go from my job, and was really happy I gave him that tip since I never went back there (out of my way) and a few years later the restaurant chain closed.
I’ll also give an additional or unneeded tip to people who are new to or struggling at the job. Once my online takeout order at a restaurant wasn’t received and the girl who was new kept apologizing while I was wanting. I kept telling her it wasn’t her fault, but I could see she really felt bad. On my out, I palmed her $5, telling her everything was fine and I would definitely return. I’ve been back a number of times, but never saw her again.
I keep some $5 & $10 gift cards or fundraising donation cards in my wallet and give them when cash, such as in a store wouldn’t be appropriate. I’ll also tell the manager or trainer of a new employee what a good job the new person is doing.
On the other hand, if the person does a poor job, I won’t hesitate to tell that to their manager too!
Edit: I remember in the 70’s, giving the server a $0.25 tip on the $0.75 burger I at the bowling alley. I’d eat there at least once a week and the girl was about the same age I was (mid teens), and she had a big smile when she lifted the plate!.
One interesting fact I learned about hotel housekeeping is how many ex felons they hire. No, not theft related felonies. It’s often people convicted of drug and alcohol offenses who have gotten clean.
A relative of an ex of mine got a felony DUI by driving on a suspended license and getting a DUI. The license bill was suspended for a ticket he didn’t pay for excessive window tint. That was considered an aggravated DUI and a felony.
He ended up working in hotel housekeeping for a couple of years, minimum wage.