Tipping in America

[User74893677]

I’m going to New York and Boston at Easter with my children. The flights were a gift but I’m paying for our hotels and obviously food, activities etc.

Ive read that we should tip at least $5 per night for housekeeping. And similar if the hotel looks after our bags before/after check in/out. And generally for pretty much everything - helping take our bags to our room, provide local information etc.

Ive worked out that we will easily spend more than $100 just on tips for the hotel staff alone - for services it’s not customary to tip for here in Europe.

AIBU to consider not tipping for these things? We are travelling on a budget and $100 (or more) is a lot of cash!

I know we will have to tip in restaurants but we’re not planning to eat out much - it’ll be warm so the plan is to buy picnic/take out food for at least two meals a day to keep costs down (also I have the least foodie children in the world and they’re very happy with picnics and take out burritos etc!).

I anticipate people saying that if we can’t afford to tip, we can’t afford America 🫣

What about people who live in NYC (or the USA in general) but are on the breadline money wise? Would you expect to factor tipping into your monthly budget when doing your expenses? or do they just not tip and appear rude?

I knew tipping was a thing in the states but I didn’t realise the extent of it! (Never been and I’m intrigued).

do people challenge you if you don’t tip? Are taxes added onto service aswell as tips?

I don’t know why this is so fascinating

It's helpful for foreign visitors to the USA to know this; but why would you be amazed that anybody from one of the many countries with very different customs needs to have this explained to them?

Were you born already knowing it, or did somebody have to tell you how it worked at some stage?!

Yep

Taxes are included in the bill typically tipping is not (except for things like large parties)

Yes people figure this into their ’can I afford it’ calculations or they avoid tipping situations (it really isn’t hard)

Basically I just mentally do a straight conversion because even though ten bucks is technically about £8, once you add the hidden charges it's right back up to a tenner, really.

@FineWhinesGoodtimes yes people will assume good faith and think you just forgot the tip if you don't give it, and let you know. But in most cases you can't really forget it because it works like this:

They bring you a bill in a leather case and they go away again. You're supposed to put your card inside the leather case. They take this away and swipe it (you have to enable magstripe on your card if you have a modern bank or it will break), and then bring the leather thing back with a receipt and a pen tucked inside. They will typically stand there over you while you do the next part. There's two dotted lines on the receipt, one for the tip amount and another for you to add the total - you have to do the maths yourself with your pen and then sign that. Then you hand the whole leather wallet back to them and they will check the amount and say thank you. That's the end of your transaction - you can now leave.

Some places now have portable machines more like we have in Europe - in this case the tip is part of the checkout flow and has the suggested amounts for you to click as discussed upthread. But mostly it's the wallet/maths exchange. If you need to pay on your phone you can but you usually have to go with them to the counter/behind the counter to sort it out.

20% in restaurants is standard. There are a few that automatically add the gratuity.
Housekeeping, I usually don't have them do my room every day but they tend to know a lot about the area and are a pretty good resource for good eats and stuff so I add up $10 to $20 per day for them. I leave it on the dresser or hand it to them

NYC and Philly and if I can't tip I don't eat out.

What about people who live in NYC (or the USA in general) but are on the breadline money wise? Would you expect to factor tipping into your monthly budget when doing your expenses? or do they just not tip and appear rude?

If you plan on dining out in a restaurant, even on a tight budget, you need to factor in tipping. If you can afford a triple shot mocha latte then you can tip the barista a dollar.

But if you're really broke then realistically most of what we're discussing on this thread isn't going to apply - bellhops, uber, tour guides, etc.

I may well have misunderstood, but a lot of this seems to me to suggest a very divided society: where everybody in a serving/hospitality role is considered to be poor and needing to be given cash at every turn to be able to survive; whilst all of the customers are assumed to be wealthy enough to have plenty of extra cash ready to hand out munificently at will.

Obviously it's two very different cultures, and not wanting to derail, but on the 'tipping in the UK' threads, it often seems to come down to the same basic assumption of 'server poor, customer rich', even when it's a customer on minimum wage enjoying a rare birthday treat and a server who is also on at least minimum wage plus all tips.

I agree these amounts are a good rule of thumb for the type of trip it sounds like OP's family will be having. The edit note 20% for table service is the floor is an important clarification - today anything below that signals the service was actually poor.

Unsurprisingly staying in nicer hotels will involve more tipping because the staff provide more service, and the expectations for a 1.5 hour multi-course dinner are completely different than a counter-service deli. Similarly I would tip housekeeping more for a big suite than a small room. But if $100 is a significant amount for your budget then you're unlikely to be getting into that higher-end territory too much.

It's a terrible system, honestly. Unfortunately there just isn't a decent way to fight it on a day to day basis. But the people you're tipping are working class and can usually distinguish between someone with a healthy bank account who is just being cheap and fellow people on a budget or those unsure of local norms.

Wtf.

Tipping is the bulk of their wage. Can't afford it, dine at McDonald's. Whether it's your birthday treat, a quick snack or your Diamond Jubilee is irrelevant.

What are you talking about? Easter is when we start planning opening our pool! We often have brilliant weather in April.

@DalzielOrNoDalzielAndDontPascoe

It's common sense.

Not all of the scenarios are irrelevant if you're really broke, though.

Broke disabled people may still need a cab if they're physically unable to use buses; and people have plenty of reasons where they can't avoid needing to stay in a very cheap motel when making essential long journeys.

Or is it only in hotels and other facilities that are over a certain level of 'posh' in the USA where tipping is expected?

Tipping is a grim culture. But it's become essential in the US because wages are depressed due to tipping being an expectation.

Tipping and the high dollar/inflated cost of everything anyway are why I probably will never visit the US again. It's a great country in many ways, but has become a very challenging place for outsiders to visit in financial terms.

I’ve lived in America and have never tipped the barman.
The only occasion in a bar is when there’s lots of free snacks laid out for everyone. Then you leave a tip, but it’s really more about paying for the snacks.

In a restaurant you tip if you were happy with the service, just the same as in England.

In terms of tipping the cleaning staff in a hotel again, no, never heard or done that one either.
I’m guessing my American friends didn’t know or just didn’t tell me if this really is a thing

As I said in my second paragraph, I was clearly referring to the UK.

So is this a recent thing ?
I lived there in the 90s so my ‘ no you don’t really tip ‘ advice might be out of date

So you think that all US customs are common sense for everybody in the world, but all standard (very different) customs in other countries are not?

That's like saying that everybody across the world who doesn't speak English must be thick, just because it's the/a language that we speak and understand!

Not really. It's more than tipping is built into the expected cost of services and into wages. No one thinks about tipping in the US as extra generosity, it's just a part of paying for services in the same way people in the UK think of VAT. The cost of a seated meal with waitstaff is menu price plus 20% and even teenagers are expected to know that.

Similarly, tipped employees are making a reduced minimum wage - the federal minimum wage converts to £1.69 for tipped employees and for restaurant waitstaff in NYC (an insanely high cost-of-living location) it has just been raised to a whopping £8.72 per hour. Tips are considered a normal part of their pay just for doing their jobs, not an extra bonus on top of a living wage.

By and large it's no more "I'm rich and you're poor here's some money" than any other service transaction... the customer pays for the service, the worker is getting paid. Americans just make part of that normal payment weirdly split out and confusing.

Unbelievable.

This totally anecdotal so don’t come at me with all of the ‘oh yeah what about’ responses.

My server friends like the tipping setup better than straight wages. For one thing only a portion of tips is taxed. There’s a calculation of what tips are assumed for taxes but most servers come out ahead.

and …

Most servers come out far ahead than minimum wage.

Now your barista that makes at least minimum wage and still whines about tips I have no time for. Double that for formally tipped now minimum wage servers.

If you are traveling to the US do yourself a favor and google before you go…not all servers and bartenders operate under the same rules… for example NYC info below…

Yeah it's ramped up and up, especially since Covid.

Crud didn’t get my other screenshot in… San Francisco for comparison .

In other words tipping servers in SFC is not necessary.

the plan is to buy picnic/take out food for at least two meals a day to keep costs down (also I have the least foodie children in the world and they’re very happy with picnics and take out burritos etc!).

Look for a Whole Foods grocery market. They generally have a very nice prepared/hot foods section with a huge variety (Buffet style). There's usually indoor seating and no tipping is required. It's great when you're traveling with kids because you can grab pizza or sushi and you can make healthier choices as well. Not cheap, but much less than a sit-down restaurant meal.

I live in the US and have done for 22 yrs. (Londoner originally). You don't have to tip anyone if you don't want to.

If you get dinner out, leave between 10-20%. Rates went up during Covid to try to impose a 15% minimum. Ignore it. 10-12% is fine.

I live in Los Angeles and have lived in NYC as well, so this is not a boondocks response.