Let's Talk Tipping

In My Humble Opinion
1

The wife and I are now only about three months away from our East Coast USA tour. As this will be our first time in the US in seven years and the first time this century anywhere on the mainland, we’re out of it as far as tipping goes. Tipping does exist in Thailand but in minuscule form. For instance, a taxi driver here is happy with a tip that is the equivalent of a few US cents. A very big night out in a nice restaurant with many people? I give maybe US$3 or as high as – Gasp! – $6 regardless of how high the bill comes to, and the wife berates me for overtipping. (That’s only for Western-style restaurants; the tip would be much less in a Thai-style restaurant or else the wife might divorce me.)

So I need some pointers on tipping, especially in NYC. I’m not interested in discussions of the “evils of tipping” or whether tipping should be outlawed or anything like that. I just want to know going rates. What do I tip the bellboy per bag for taking our stuff up to our room? Waitresses? Taxi drivers? Hotel concierges even, if they’ve helped us with tickets and such. I think I’ve read 15-20% is common now for restaurants and 20% for cab drivers. How about when we check out of our room? Only recently have I heard that it’s customary to leave behind a dollar for every day in the hotel or so for the cleaning lady upon check-out. I must confess to being a cretin in this regard, as I’ve never done it. Just was never aware of the practice. I am now, but where do I leave it? Under the pillow like it comes from the tooth fairy? On the dresser?

Thanks in advance for any info.

2

Oh, God. A tipping thread on the SD. Based off of the last several, here’s a rundown of the next dozen pages.

[ul]
[li]helpful advice[/li][li]mainstream viewpoints[/li][li]highly inflammatory spouting off[/li][li]the rabble is roused[/li][li]a call for levity[/li][li]rabble re-roused with personal anecdotes Re: waitressing days[/li][li]Europe is different, btw[/li][li]Strawmen galore[/li][li]like Thunderdome, two are left fighting each other, but unlike Thunderdome - we all leave.[/li][li]7 months[/li][li]zombie[/li][/ul]

3

And, done in one.

4

A+

5

For hotels, the Bellmen get $1.00 per bag. The doorman/bellman gets a buck for calling you a cab, if all is normal and more if he has to go out of his way or if it’s raining and it’s hard to get a cab. Don’t be surprised if they refuse certain items like laptop cases. Some hotels I’ve been in, have instructed bellmen not to carry laptops. Doorman do not get tips for simply opening and closing doors.

The housekeepers should get $1 or $2 a day. Remember to leave it daily as the maids don’t always clean the same rooms. At then end of the hotel stay leave $5.00 at least for the housekeeper as that one will have to clean up your room as a check out.

It depends on how well they clean. In terms of a dollar or two dollars and the final tip on how your overall stay way. You put the daily tip in an obvious spot that won’t be confused with a guest leaving money around. Such as under an ashtray, in hotels that allow smoking, or on top a TV or some obvious spot.

If you really want to help the maid, strip the bed and leave the sheets and towels in a ball. It really helps as they can simply walk in, grab your dirty sheets and towels and throw them on their cart and just start cleaning ASAP. It’s not at all necessary, but it really makes their job a lot quicker.

Concierges get nothing for simple advice, such as name good restaurants, or touristy things they normally get questioned about. Like if you’re in NYC, “Where is the Empire State Building located”?

The more they do for you, the more you tip. If they get theater tickets for you and it’s a tough show to get, you tip them more. In Chicago a hotel concierge is going to get between $10 - $15 an hour depending on type of hotel. So you don’t want to over tip. So you want to base it on how hard it was for him to help you and apply that to about what you think he’d be getting per hour.

For restaurants, the coat check is a dollar per coat and two dollars if it’s a fur or luxury coat. You tip the wine server as well, but I’m not sure how much. 20% is a standard tip. You can reduce this a bit for bad service (not food quality) and up it for stellar service.

Bad food quality means sending it back or addressing the complaint with the manager.

For cabs it’s 10% to 20% and rounding. I start with 10% and go up, depending on their service. If they are driving in heavy traffic or hard rain, up the tip. If the cab isn’t basically clean, lower it. If you are sure the cabbie is milking the fare lower the tip.

Sorry but if you’re a cabbie, you should take 5 seconds between fares to clean out old Burger King wrappers out the back. That counts against you. Unless you’re actually stepping into a cab, someone just got out of.

Finally I just round the fare. So if the fare is 8.95 and I want to give 20%, I would do this. 8.95 is 90¢ (10%) 90¢ X 2 = 1.80. Then 1.80 + 8.95 = 10.75. In this case I’d just go with 11 dollars to not deal with change.

If you take a commercial tour and such and they allow tipping, it’s between $1 and $5, again depending on how much effort you feel the tour guide is putting into his job. This is for public, group tours. Private tours would be much higher.

In theory it’s considered poor taste to tip, managers or owners of businesses. But I say, if you want to tip and that person has really went out of their way for you, do it.

6

Perhaps, given drastic’s helpful advice, we can stay on task this time.

7

When tipping servers, other than really awful service, 10-15% is good, it depends on the spot. Lunch in a diner, on the less side, snooty restaurants, on the more side.

Try not to sweat it too much. Servers know it all balances out and are truly not sweating one tip, at one table, that was X% under the norm. Do not use this as an excuse to under tip, just don’t sweat it too much. It’s not like anyone is going to chase you down or shun you.

Just relax, and you’ll be fine.

8

Thanks all. Appreciate the advice. We’re not really worried about tipping, just want to know the going rates these days.

Also, I get the impression that NYC tends to see bigger tips than elsewhere on the coast. Is that true?

9

15% is standard in restaurants. More for great service, less for poor service.

10

More like 18%, with boosts for special service. In NYC, figure 20%.

11

Noted, thanks. Been a long while since my waitressing days.

12

Well, we also tend to over-tip. (Hijack starting reasons deleted for the Good of the Order.)

13

BeaMyra pretty much has it. Left off was tipping at bars, which is typically $1/drink. As always, YMMV. Many folks won’t tip a dollar for a $2 beer, and a higher tip for a drink that requires lengthy preparation is common.

People will always argue about the exact numbers. For instance, I feel that 20% to a food server is high, but others here obviously do not.

14

A couple of practical tips with respect to computing tips in your head:

  1. **Round before calculating. ** It’s much easier to figure what the tip ought to be on $70 than on $67.36. It won’t make that much difference anyway - even if you’re rounding to the nearest $10, the difference will be less than $1 for a 20% tip.
    2a) To calculate 10%, just move the decimal point over: $70 -->$7.
    2b) To calculate 20%, double that: $70 -->$7 -->$14.
    2c) For percentages in between, guesstimate. 15% will be halfway in between 10% and 20%; 18% will be closer to the 20% end. So in our example, 15% will be in the ballpark of $10-$11; 18% will be a buck or two under that $14, or $12-$13. Don’t worry about exactitude; once you’ve got the right ballpark, go up or down based on your opinion of the service.
15

If you do this should you reduce the tip on the basis you have done part of their job, or increase it on the basis they did their job quicker?

16

Again, thanks to all, especially BeaMyra. This is very helpful, and no Thunderdomes yet. (Maybe a Thunderdome would be pretty entertaining now that I think of it, heh. :D)

17

Really?

I’ve never been to NY, nor really to a truly snooty restaurant, but when I do eat out, I’m more likely to tip a larger percentage at a cheap, diner-type place, just because 15% of an expensive meal is already a big chunk of change.

18

You don’t do this as a tipping issue, you do it because you are a human being and it’s a kindness to other human beings who make 60% less than you and work 3X as hard. It takes 3 seconds, but a friend I had who did this for years would weep with joy upon seeing this. Same with piling the dirty towels in a group so s/he could snatch them all in one fell swoop.

Also, as anyone who has worked in public service can attest: Open the door by the HANDLE not pressing the glass! (People who press on the glass have obviously never had to clean the goddamn glass door 47 times a day.)

19

I was being facetious insofar as I agree it isn’t a tipping issue. I am however bemused by being told that when paying for a serviced room I should do some of the servicing myself just so as to save an employee paid to do the servicing from doing that work. Why pay for it then do it myself? And it’s not as if it is ultimately being kind: if everyone saved all the room servicing staff time in this way they would just have their hours cut or be given additional work to do.

Doing things in a thoughtless way so as to cause unnecessary work (like pressing the glass not the handle) is something else altogether.

20

Another thought to remember - I’ve stayed in hotels where if you wanted new towels you were supposed to throw the old ones into the bath, if you hung your towels back up they wouldn’t be changed.

I could see something similiar with the sheets as well if you wanted them changed mid stay