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 🫣

I had no idea tipping was expected in hotels. We spent 3 weeks doing a road trip across the US a few years ago and never tipped in hotels.
It was never mentioned and there was no atmosphere or anything. Though they weren't super nice places, so not cleaned everyday and I think we were only offered help with our bags once.
Though we got one taxi from the airport and the guy was super rude because we didn't know that we needed to add a tip onto the cost of the taxi and then didn't want to leave when we gave him 10% because we had no idea what was normal, he was so aggressive that we refused to give him more money.
I also generally found that the expectation for 20% in restaurants felt frustrating because the service was rarely actually good & in the UK I would tip based on the service level. I remember going to the US as a child though and the wait staff were so friendly and kind.

Please remember that in the west coast cities especially the wait staff are paid proper wages, over $20 an hour in Seattle so prices in restaurants are higher to cover that cost but conversely you tip less!

It's very easy to research tipping customs online BEFORE one travels abroad.

This. The tips are sadly relied upon.

I tended bar while in university in the U.S. It's not just that they are needed, it's because wait staff in the American restaurants have to "tip out" a percentage of their sales to other workers who don't receive tips directly, like busers, food runners, service bartenders, kitchen staff, etc.

So if you don't tip, they still have to pay out to the others and can lose money serving you.

The tipping culture can be quite upsetting sometimes. We lived in America for over a decade, six years in NY so we understood and complied with tipping etiquette. On a trip to NYC a few years ago, we enjoyed breakfast every morning at a favourite diner. Three consecutive mornings, we were waited on by a lovely young woman and she was so friendly and solicitous, we were happy to reward her with a twenty five percent tip. On the fourth morning we were seated in a different section of the diner. A very lofty young man appeared at our table and, before we said a word, immediately haranged us loudly and performatively (a wannabe actor probably!) on American tipping protocol and the failure of foreign tourists to comply. We were so appalled and offended at how obnoxiously rude he was, we left and never returned. We were polite, more than he was, and suggested to the manager on the way out that he should have a word with the young man. As we were leaving, I saw our lovely waitress looking concerned, watching this from her section. I really hope she asked her co-worker what had happened and told him that he had unnecessarily offended us.

Tip in bars, restaurants and anywhere you sit to eat or drink.
I rarely use the bellhop service, I can carry my own small bag thanks. Tip taxis.
other than that… but yes 20% when you eat. Consider it as part of the price and NOT optional.

As for housekeeping - tips are nice but not expected. Some hotels will leave an optional envelope out but most won’t. It’s up to you whether or not you leave any money out…

It's fairly common for tourists not to tip in American restaurants, either out of ignorance or tightness, and the result is that servers often prefer not to wait on them out of concern that they'll lose money on their tip out (see the explanation I posted above).

That said, your waiter was bang out of order and his behavior should have gotten him sacked immediately. It all averages out and you can't pick and chose your customers or lecture them preemptively.

Where do people get all these $1 dollar bills that are needed all the time for the odd tip? Do you have to go to a bank and ask to exchange $50 dollars for all $1 dollar bills every couple of days. Or can you get them from an ATM?

You can ask the bar person or reception in a hotel or restaurant to break a note for you and they will.
They will also give you any change in loads of ones or 5s too… knowing that they might get it back in tips.

None of this ‘ oh I can’t open the till’ nonsense that you get here!

This thread has reminded me of the time a VERY angry taxi driver screamed 'CHEAP SHITS' repeatedly at the top of his lungs at my husband and I as we got out of his cab and walked into our hotel.

The reason? We had nothing smaller than a fifty buck note that he wouldn't break for a tip.

Last time I went to NY we stayed in an AirbnB in Brooklyn. Between tidying up ourselves and having the use of a full kitchen we saved $$$ on not having to tip absolutely everyone. Will go for the same again instead of a hotel next time.

You don’t need to tip, there’s no special service here. It’s not our fault if they don’t get paid enough, & no different to the people in the UK who get minimum wage. You don’t see them begging or being rude if you don’t tip.

I'm assuming I have to tip the hotel valet parking person every time I see them (in addition to paying for parking). Or maybe just on pick up?

When I worked as a waitress in the US my hourly rate was a THIRD of the U.K. minimum wage… they get paid peanuts because tips make up the rest of their salary. And tips can be good - I worked in Boston where the accent meant I was given HUGE tips by the locals.

No, just when they take the car or bring it back! A lot of places have a set charge now because they can’t trust tourists to tip properly

Sorry that's what I meant! I assume I won't see them anywhere else 😃
On TV I just see people handing keys to the valet, they don't seem to tip on drop off.
I've spent so long looking for bargains for our holiday, I think they will all be wiped out with tipping.

I hate the American tipping culture. I understand that they are paid low but I don't understand why the country can't just implement a national living wage so that people don't feel guilt tripped into tipping for crap service! I was so anxious going to New York because of it. I ended up just saying no thank you to everything that was offered. We put the do not disturb sign on the door so housekeeping didn't go in at all as we didn't need anything done. We tipped taxi drivers and the guy at the hotel who looked after our luggage after we had checked out on our last day but that's it. Another couple I went with tipped one day and they got their bottles of water and snacks in the room replenished but as soon as they didn't it wasn't replenished. To me this is cheeky, here a hotel provides these things and the staff don't get to withhold them just because they haven't been left a tip. We went to a diner and the woman didn't even acknowledge us and basically threw our food at us but because of the abuse you can get for not tipping we tipped. She counted it in front of us and walked away without even a thank you 🙄

Things I will never, ever understand about America

1. The healthcare
2. The guns
3. The tipping

One of the reasons I detest the American working system is tipping. I find it unbelievable that they have crap working minimum wages but ask for a 20% tip in a restaurant for doing nothing more than serving food.

The UK is not better. They still tip to the waiters because without them, they take crap money home.

In Aistralia we don't tip at all, Wages are high across the industries and if you leave a tip is because you've received a service higher than expected.

Same as in many countries in Europe. I come from Spain and the only tip you leave is the spare coins from the change if you paid in cash.

The worst thing about the US tipping system is the entitlement .
They honestly believe that you should tip them and many fail to thank you for tipping them.
I once had a driver who I hired to drive me from New York City to a town in New York State.
It was the middle of the night and he was lost.
He eventually dropped me at bar in the middle of nowhere and asked me to get my hosts to collect me . Despite the fact that he had hasn’t dropped me at the correct destination I gave him his full fare. I thought that I was being nice. The fucker then had the nerve to ask me for a tip. I refused, which didn’t go down well.

The trouble with the US system is that because tipping is expected things are arranged so that the low-paid indidivual suffers if a tip isn't given. Not the employer, not the government. The employer pays low wages in the expectation that the employee will receive tips. The government taxes workers on the expected level of tips they will get, not the actual level. They're meant to declare if they get tipped more of course, but at a basic level they will be taxed on the amount of tips they "should" have received for each shift, regardless of whether they got even a cent in tips. It's this way because of course it's easy for low-paid people to cheat the taxman when tips are given in cash.

You don't have to leave a $5 tip in your room every day but it's good practice to leave at least a couple. Elsewhere it's normal to tip 20% for standard/acceptable levels of service, 30% of more for good service. It's especially important to tip places where you intend to go back in the near future.

Oh and make sure you take a credit card with you. A lot of British people think they can get away with using a debit card everywhere. Some businesses like car hire firms won't accept a debit card issued overseas.

I think the lack of transparency is confusing and makes tourists feel like they are being taken advantage of. I still feel baffled by the bar in Boston where we paid a 20% tip but were also charged a 5%"hospitality fee" on top. Seeing as we stood up and went to the bar to collect our own beers (as is the custom in a lot of Boston pubs and bars), both charges were a bit of fucking liberty IMO