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 🫣

Many moons ago when I was student I worked in housekeeping in a hotel in the States. This was in the 90s, tips were expected then and we had specific envelopes we left in the rooms for these tips. Tbh I wasn't bothered either way if a tip was left or not but, mainly American staff, saw it as affront if a tip wasn't left and would actually query it with the guests as to why and what they could improve on. I did not find the hourly rate for housekeeping bad back then and tips were not needed to supplement it so was surprised people were expected to tip. I also worked as a waitress where the hourly rate was pathetic I think about $2 per hour so you relied on your tips in fact you had to declare your tips for tax so often ended up with $0 in your wage packets.

Op NY has got very expensive but you can of course not opt to eat out and buy decent groceries and take away sandwiches etc which is cheaper. Alcohol was very expensive I was there last year and paying about $16 for a glass of wine but I see you won't be going out to bars. Like anywhere you can of course budget and do things on a shoestring hope you enjoy the trip

I feel like there’s a lot of jealousy on this thread. I hope you have a fabulous holiday!

They don’t “need” a holiday to New York. But I can (just) afford it. And for personal reasons they (and I) would really like to visit the east coast. Don’t worry, we love a UK holiday too. This is a really special treat for my children.

Thank you xx

You’ll struggle to find picnic food that is affordable. NYC supermarkets are ££££. We found Trader Joe’s the cheapest place and that’s not cheap.

Joe’s dollar pizza is a good cheap meal.

Not me but my older brother was chased by a waitress asking why he only left a small tip. He'd left 10 dollars on a 80 dollar meal.

I didn't find that at all. I had an amazing mini mart round the corner from my hotel in the East Village that had fantastic picnic food options for similar price to home. I am still dreaming of their overnight oats they were gorgeous

How do people tip though in hotels and the like? Do you actually have to carry cash around?

I haven't used cash in years

I think if I was bankrupting our family to take the children to Disney and complaining about the cost of... I don't know - Mickey Mouse ears or something, then that would be a bit different. We won't ever be going to Disney because a) it's so expensive and b) none of us want to (phew!).

I don't take my children abroad much and normally it's to visit friends and family so we just pay for flights and food/drink etc while we're there (and we always, always pay for as many meals out for the people hosting us as they will allow us to!). But this is a special trip and I'm just working out a realistic budget before we go so there are no major surprises.

THANK YOU to everyone who has reassured me. We will tip at restaurants and cafes when we eat in. We will avoid taking cabs, asking anyone to carry luggage etc and I will tip housekeeping on days they come in.

We're privileged to be able to afford to go and pay for the hotels etc. I know how fortunate we are. But at the moment we can't go and just throw cash around the way some of my friends can. That doesn't mean we can't have a great time.

Lucky you, it’s a massive place and hiking round finding cheap supermarkets( if they exist) isn’t always doable. I haven’t heard a single person say you can buy food cheaply in NYC. Our mini mart made Waitrose look like Lidl price wise. If you’re feeding 4 or 5 people cheap it is not as regards supermarkets and dollar pizza can get dull.

We've travelled extensively across the US and never tipped housekeeping, it was only something I came across online somewhat recently (if you want to feel nauseous go have a look at some Disney forums and see what they do for housekeeping..)

Anyway I don't have an issue in theory now that I am aware and knowing what the US is like, but the main problem is I simply don't travel with cash, the US are slowly catching up to other countries with digital payments/banking, as such tipping in restaurants etc can be done digitally now further reducing my need to use cash. I would mind leaving a higher amount on our last day, but assume staff might change around.

I suspect in US cities popular with international guests that housekeeping will be used to not getting tips.

Plus housekeeping has become much less thorough and frequent since Covid, in my experience.

Not as many tourists?

🤣🤣
and yet @TattooGuineaPig who also actually lives in the US agrees with me

I don't tip house keeping and never had any issues. I draw the line at that as it wld be really expensive for a 2week holiday. Everything else yes u tip. The minimum these days seems to be 20% for waiting staff.

Saying no for help with bags isn't popular as that's how they make money. I don't imagine they wld be rude but might be a little off with you.

The thing with bags is that I have travelled with hand luggage before and it feels like play acting to accept help carrying my small cabin bag to a lift when I've carried it from London. If I have genuinely heavy or bulky luggage I'm more than happy to accept help and tip.

I like the way you think, in that for you it's about practicality and need. Makes total sense!

I realise I am more than a bit spoiled with how work pays for business travel, in that if someone greets me and takes my case from the car and it later magically appears in my room following a knock at the door, I have no issue tipping this as it is all part of the frictionless 'experience'.

Similar for me. I live in the US and travel often. We usually do take out bags up ourselves; no one thinks less of you for that. We do always leave a tip for housekeeping, but we travel with our dog and acknowledge that there might be a bit more cleaning (mainly vacuuming) to do.

And yes, in a sit down restaurant, it's 20% minimum.

The growing resistance to tipping in the US is for things like the expectation of a tip when you order at a counter and receive your item there. Some establishments are putting the option to tip on the pay system when that didn't exist before. In that case, I might tip, but it will be a small amount, maybe 10% at most.

Wait staff are exempt from the minimum wage.

As has been pointed out previously, this is not actually true. Wait staff are paid a reduced minimum wage by the employer, but if tips don't make up the difference to the level of the full legal minimum wage, then the employer has to pay that difference. This seldom happens, though.

I've never tipped housekeeping, that's just weird, it's what you pay your room fee for! Do tip for extras like help with luggage

It is customary in the US.

And unless it's different in Boston, in New York 15% was quite acceptable for a tip 2 years ago, plus the minimum wage for wait staff has been increased anyway.

But that's America.

They don't give a shit about the less able or those that earn less. It's a totally individualist dog eat dog place. The seemingly immediate friendliness of serving staff etc is because they need to get paid. People don't care if others die of disease as long as they don't have to pay any tax towards helping the less fortunate.

A poster on here was recently advised that they should indeed accept a potential move to the US because whilst the bottom 50 per cent have it much worse, the top 50 have it much better. To me, a post saying come and live in out heavily divided society didn't seem much of an incentive!

It's all about the money. The Americans always take a lot of credit for WW2 but we paid them for it. We only finished paying in 2006 and now they are trying to rape Ukraine for it's mineral wealth.

it's no wonder Trump got in, the USA is an utterly soulless venal place these days despite how many pretend to be good Christians.

It's 20%.

I'm here in Manhattan right now. Not 2 years ago (when tbh it was also 20%), not in the 90s. Now. It's 20%. It's dumb obviously but that's how it is.

Any analysis that requires you to believe that 400 million people are soulless monsters has gone wrong, @Panterusblackish . There are good people and bad people everywhere. In England, in America, in Syria, in Russia - ordinary people are just trying to get by - loving their children and helping their neighbours, and hoping the world is still around in the morning. Most people are decent and we all have more in common with other ordinary humans than we do with our leaders. Don't let the media and politicians tell you their brutal stories are the world. We're the world.

New Yorker here. 15% would be considered quite a shoddy tip in NY, an expression of displeasure over some aspect of the meal.

I do tip housekeeping when I stay in a hotel, and it's considered customary. A lot of hotels have cut back on housekeeping due to labor shortages. I just spent three nights in Orlando and the front desk asked me if I needed the room fully cleaned everyday. I said no, just bring me fresh towels everyday. On my last full day I went back to my room for something and found a housekeeper giving it a full clean, so I tipped her $5. If my room were being made up every day, I'd tip once a the end, but probably not as much as $5 per day.