Do you tip these people?

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

On two occasions on our last trip we took a cab from one resort to another - once from Yacht Club and once from AKL - back to Pop. Should I have given a tip to the valet person who called the cab for us? I didn't think about it until after we got home.

The other person I didn't tip but maybe should have was the TSA guy at Pop doing airline check-in and boarding passes.

What do you all think?

 

[Obi-Wan Pinobi]

The valet calling the cab could go either way. Some might tip, some might not. If it were me and I thought about it, I would have tipped a couple of dollars. $1 seems cheap and $5 seems too much to me, but that's just me.

I think the TSA agent would be a definite "no." Being a government employee, I think they would be barred from accepting a gratuity of any kind. It might look like you're paying them to look the other way about something in your luggage.

 

[Lewisc]

The checkin person in the resort serves the same functions as a skycap in the airport. They are not TSA employees but the vendor is approved by the TSA for remote checkin.

I'm not sure if it's a tipped position or not.

I think the TSA agent would be a definite "no." Being a government employee, I think they would be barred from accepting a gratuity of any kind. It might look like you're paying them to look the other way about something in your luggage.

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

That makes me feel better!

The reason it came up is because DFW is now charging per bag for curbside check-in, yet the sky caps are still expecting tips. I was telling my mom we will tip the sky cap when we check our bags to fly out but with ME we won't have to deal with them at MCO. Then I wondered if I should have tipped the guy who checked our bags in and printed our boarding passes at the resort. The patch on his uniform said TSA, I think. I wasn't having a very Disney sort of morning the day we came home so I didn't notice if anyone else was tipping.

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

The checkin person in the resort serves the same functions as a skycap in the airport. They are not TSA employees but the vendor is approved by the TSA for remote checkin.

I'm not sure if it's a tipped position or not.

TSA employees are government employees who screen baggage and passengers at the airport.

The Remote Airline Check-in employees at the WDW resorts work for BAGS, Inc., a TSA-approved contractor that provides remote skycap services. They are not "TSA guys" and they don't screen baggage or passengers; they facilitate the secure transportation of the luggage to the airport, where the luggage is screened by TSA employees.

When I used Remote Airline Check-in, I assumed the remote skycap was a tipped position. But I asked him anyway. He answered yes. I tipped as I would a skycap at the airport.

Disney does a poor job providing guidelines about tipping for DME and Remote Airline Check-in.

 

[Chuck S]

I tipped the airline check-in person at OKW. They aren't TSA employees, nor Disney front desk employees, but outside approved contractors...so I assumed it was similar to a skycap, and I appreciated the service being available even though we didn't use DME, so I did tip like a skycap.

As for the cab/valet person...probably they should have gotten a tip. But I'll bet the majority of people (us included) don't come from a big city and don't use this this type of service on a regular basis, so I probably would have been like the OP and not thought about it until later.