Tipping overload?

[Travel60]

Is anyone else reaching the "tipping point" on tipping?

I've always been a good tipper. Grew up in a restaurant/hotel family. 20% minimum at a full-service restaurant, 10-15% at quick serve. Tip the hotel cleaning person per night, the porter per bag. I know these folks historically have not been well paid and depend on tips.

BUT, most service people have had significant raises (some double) and prices have gone up like crazy. At many quick-serve restaurants now, I have to get my own drink, find my own napkins and flatware and bus my own table. Plus, the $7 salad is now $14 and the tea or coffee is $4. But when I go to pay by credit card, the default tip on the little machine is 20% ...really? At the hotel, daily room straightening/replinishment is gone and a little sign says that "as a convenience," I can request clean towels or more supplies. My very simple 30 minute haircut has gone from $50 to $75 and the default tip is 20%. They even tried to charge a tip on some hair product I purchased. Everywhere I shop there seems to be a tip jar out.

Anyone else?

 

[Moliphino]

I would love it if we could move away from tipping and just pay people a normal wage. It's so nice when visiting other countries when the price on the menu is what you pay.

 

[LuvOrlando]

I don't like businesses begging with those jars, but I tip regular people frequently & still keep a bunch of $5's in my wallet to keep the economy humming along. Regular people with money in their hands will keep the lights on in my town so I'm standing by this form of appreciation.

I would not tip a counter person unless they offer to carry my stuff to the car for me.

 

[Pink Partridge]

I just went to a place where the bartender set the default tip to 30% I didn't even know that was a thing. This girl brought me two beers and sloppily placed them down, with beer going all down the sides of our glasses.

I put it down to 20% and got a scowl. An actual stare down.

We drank our beers (they were actually good) and left. I won't be going back.

Service is getting worse, in my opinion. And then to expect a 30% tip and get sullen when it's "only"20%?

I will say, when I have good service, I will give 40% at a bar and between 25% and 30% at a restaurant..well deserved in my opinion.

 

[MousetersInc]

Is anyone else reaching the "tipping point" on tipping?

I've always been a good tipper. Grew up in a restaurant/hotel family. 20% minimum at a full-service restaurant, 10-15% at quick serve. Tip the hotel cleaning person per night, the porter per bag. I know these folks historically have not been well paid and depend on tips.

BUT, most service people have had significant raises (some double) and prices have gone up like crazy. At many quick-serve restaurants now, I have to get my own drink, find my own napkins and flatware and bus my own table. Plus, the $7 salad is now $14 and the tea or coffee is $4. But when I go to pay by credit card, the default tip on the little machine is 20% ...really? At the hotel, daily room straightening/replinishment is gone and a little sign says that "as a convenience," I can request clean towels or more supplies. My very simple 30 minute haircut has gone from $50 to $75 and the default tip is 20%. They even tried to charge a tip on some hair product I purchased. Everywhere I shop there seems to be a tip jar out.

Anyone else?

All fair points, but there's a difference between "default"—a clever suggestion to drive user behavior toward a particular amount, but still allowing freedom to name another number or add no tip at all—and an "automatically added to the check, required" tip. As long as we're talking about the former, the only impact of "defaults" is to add a few seconds. (I saw a clever one yesterday that didn't even highlight a default, but presented amounts from left to right decreasing—"would you like to add: (25%) (20%) (15%) (10%)"—so that the first thing you read, the "suggestion you heard," was the highest one.)

 

[tvguy]

I would love it if we could move away from tipping and just pay people a normal wage. It's so nice when visiting other countries when the price on the menu is what you pay.

What's a living wage? I lived on my wage for 40+ years and now McDonalds starting pay is within $2 an hour of my highest hourly wage.

 

[tvguy]

Is anyone else reaching the "tipping point" on tipping?

I've always been a good tipper. Grew up in a restaurant/hotel family. 20% minimum at a full-service restaurant, 10-15% at quick serve. Tip the hotel cleaning person per night, the porter per bag. I know these folks historically have not been well paid and depend on tips.

BUT, most service people have had significant raises (some double) and prices have gone up like crazy. At many quick-serve restaurants now, I have to get my own drink, find my own napkins and flatware and bus my own table. Plus, the $7 salad is now $14 and the tea or coffee is $4. But when I go to pay by credit card, the default tip on the little machine is 20% ...really? At the hotel, daily room straightening/replinishment is gone and a little sign says that "as a convenience," I can request clean towels or more supplies. My very simple 30 minute haircut has gone from $50 to $75 and the default tip is 20%. They even tried to charge a tip on some hair product I purchased. Everywhere I shop there seems to be a tip jar out.

Anyone else?

The pandemic prompted me to widen the kind of situations where I tip. I now tip for restaurant take out, something I never did before.
But I have to admit that I was surprised last month when I stayed at two different Holiday Inn Expresses and there was a tip jar at the free breakfast buffet. Although, until I got on the DIS I had never heard of leaving a tip for housekeeping.
In the 1970's when I was working minimum wage jobs when I was in College I was envious of my friends who worked as servers in restaurants, where they got the same minimum wage I did plus tips. There is no sub-minimum wage in California for tipped positions so they cleaned up even after tip sharing.

 

[Moliphino]

What's a living wage? I lived on my wage for 40+ years and now McDonalds starting pay is within $2 an hour of my highest hourly wage.

I said normal not living. There shouldn't be a special tipped minimum wage, everyone should make at least the normal minimum wage.

 

[HashberryOTG]

IMHO, it's gotten unreasonable. Many of these "tipped" employees now a days are also earning a standard hourly wage with no room to report tips for tax purposes anyways. I'd much prefer the non-American way of businesses paying up front and eliminate tipping. Having done a lot of waitressing when I was young, it's hard to budget when you have no idea what you're making on any given week. Especially if you happened to piss off the person making the schedule and aren't given peak hours. Just pay people what they're worth.

 

[Skippy918]

This annoys me too and it’s gotten out of hand. Then I feel guilty for clicking no tip. Why do I need to tip for picking up pizza or something from a food truck. I took my daughter ice skating and they had a tip line on the receipt. They didn’t do anything for me except ring me up.

 

[mrodgers]

I would love it if we could move away from tipping and just pay people a normal wage. It's so nice when visiting other countries when the price on the menu is what you pay.

Other than waiting tables, we pretty much do pay people a normal wage. Retail and fast food are no longer on the bottom. A lot of manufacturing now is. Walmart and McDonalds passed us in manufacturing up.

 

[MICKIMINI]

We travel about five weeks a year and try to be as generous as possible. I too get offended when people want 30% when we are ordering and picking up ourselves. I don't mind leaving a couple dollars but there is a limit.

On vacation where we are now at WDW for three weeks, we share as much as possible. It is a personal thing and we do it because we can and are grateful for what we have. We don't judge what others tip. We tip based on good service and a good attitude. I gave $15 to the bellman that brought a few bags from one villa to another (same building) this morning and the cleaning person $10 as we left our room immaculate from two nights. At Steakhouse71 we left $25 on a $55 tab today and about the same yesterday at Kona Cafe. Honestly I could not do any of those jobs and appreciate the assistance. DH and are both on the same page with tipping, but he defers to me to decide how much and it makes him feel good too. He works 40+ hours a week and when we are being waited on, we tip as much as we can. Just my personal opinion.

 

[mrsstats79]

I agree. Tipping is out of hand. I don't tip for housekeeping at a hotel. Usually, we are there 2 nights. We don't have them come in while we are there. We leave our room neat. Why am I tipping? Restaurants we tip 20% normally. It depends if I will put money in a tip jar.

 

[tvguy]

I agree. Tipping is out of hand. I don't tip for housekeeping at a hotel. Usually, we are there 2 nights. We don't have them come in while we are there. We leave our room neat. Why am I tipping? Restaurants we tip 20% normally. It depends if I will put money in a tip jar.

2 of the 3 hotels we stayed in last month don't do daily housekeeping anymore. They only come in if you stay 5 days or longer. One hotel said it was part of their covid safety protocol, the second said they didn't have enough staff.

 

[ronandannette]

30% tip for anything? Hell will freeze over first.

 

[nw6675]

My recent favorite was the tip envelope for the cleaning crew at an Airbnb. I literally had paid a $250 cleaning fee to the owner and we left it spotless - minus the HANDCUFFS and sock we found under the couch when we pulled it out. Just no.

 

[disykat]

We just had a crumbl cookie open. I paid almost $5 for a cookie and it had "suggested tip amounts" that were insane! Why should I tip for someone to hand me a cookie? I really don't get it! Our state doesn't have a tipping wage, yet people still seem to be expected to tip as if there is.

 

[Wakey]

As a foreigner on foreign Disney and travel forums I can confirm US tipping culture is largely seen now as being totally out of control. As a visitor to the USA, maybe 40 times since 1992, and having travelled now 30 States, I can also confirm this.
Tipping made sense when people were paid peanuts. Now they are not in a lot of places. California they are amongst the highest paid wages for servers in the World before tips.
It doesn’t help that false information is constantly posted on tipping threads, which would, for example, mean if it were true, the employer would be breaking wage laws. But it still gets posted as fact.

 

[EACarlson]

I will tip for service. I'm not tipping when you sell me a product. I also tip for level of service. You ignore me and I can see you playing on your phone at the servers' station? You're not getting more than a buck or two. You really take good care of me, you'll get a good tip. I went to a Cracker Barrel in Orlando and tipped over 100%, but the service was worth it to me. I've had a $150 bill at a fancy restaurant and tipped $2 because the service was horrible.
I went to a concert, bought a t shirt for $40 and the merch booth added a 20% tip for themselves thinking I wouldn't see it. How many of the 25,000 people there that night did that work on and didn't complain? I'm not tipping if I am picking up food at a restaurant, I'm not tipping at a coffee shop or any other counter service place.

 

[Once.Upon.A.Time]

I think tipping is out of hand too. I add in what I will have to tip usually before I get something done (like nails).