Should You Really Be Tipping $10/Day in Hotels?
Woaria Rashid March 21, 2019
Maid with housekeeping cart (Photo: iStock)
In her memoir, Maid, Stephanie Land details her life as a maid and the daily struggles of trying to earn a living with hard work, low pay. One takeaway she wants people to know is to leave a tip for housekeepers, every day.
Tipping etiquette, a highly contentious topic, is determined in part by the cost of the room and how much you had your room cleaned during a stay. According to Land, guests should tip $10 every day and per person in the room. “If your stay is multiple days, tip every day you expect cleaning service. Seriously.”
Things to do before leaving a hotel room:
Ball up your towels, washcloth in the middle.
Pick the hair out of the drain.
Flush.
Put garbage in the garbage.
Tip. ($10/day, per person who stayed)
If your stay is multiple days, tip every day you expect cleaning service.
Seriously.— Stephanie Land (@stepville) March 15, 2019
Flyertalkers expressed their thoughts on Land’s suggestion.
“I don’t make a mess at home, I don’t make a mess in hotel rooms. Cleaning service for me is limited to making the bed (if I didn’t do it on autopilot), emptying the trash and fresh towels,” said CDTraveler. “Sorry, that’s not worth a gratuity on top of the room rate.”
Often1 writes, “At a luxury hotel, I would tip $5 to the bellman even though I don’t ever check luggage so all he is doing is taking the bag out of the trunk and handing it to me. Housekeeping is $15-20/day (more if kids, etc) and butler is same. High-end restaurant should be a minimum of 20% (don’t expect a decent table ever again if you go under).”
Having worked in the hotel industry, Hotturnip adds that “…tipping housekeepers is a genuine tip in the purest sense, not a service fee. They’re paid normal wages, unlike food servers, and in union hotels, those wages can be respectable. The tip is simply a way of acknowledging that you appreciate the service they provide. Take my word for it, housekeepers are often the hardest working and most overlooked staff in the hotel. So I like to let them know that I know how important they are.”
[Image Source: iStock]
Capitalist America needs to to pay their service industries better wages and not make them depend on tips. That is so degrading to the workers. How can Americans be so pompous and think to pay minimum wage or less and expect tourists and visitors to pay their workers?
Was there a discussion on a Flyertalk forum about this? May I have a link to it, please?
Others that you should be tipping at least 15%: Bus Driver, Sanitation worker, Clerk, Busboy, Gas Station attendant, Fast Food worker, Valet parker, Bartender, Hotel Housekeeper, Newspaper Carrier, US Mail carrier, Firemen standing at steet corner with empty boot (fill 'er up), Grocery courtesy clerk, etc. Many of these people are barely making it. Some may have huge boat payments---they can run well into the 100's, especially if it's a yacht. Others have gambling budgets that can really eat into one's daily budget. Please, don't be selfish and generously tip these people. Use cash and don't tip on your credit card. Cash is best.
It would never occur to me to tip a maid in a hotel. Not even in the USA. Crazy suggestion. The USA needs to look to the rest of the world and sort their service industries out. This is just ludicrous.
The tipping culture is one aspect of travelling to the US I really detest.