Originally Posted by
QueenOfCoach
That's really pushy, and I don't blame you for not tipping.
As for your question about tipping housekeeping staff in hotels in the US, here is what I do. I leave a dollar for an ordinary one night stay where I made no demands on the housekeeping staff. (No requests for extra towels, etc.)
For multiple-night stays, it is likely I have made some demands, so I leave proportionately more. I left $20 for a three night stay in Hawaii, where the housekeeper did a truly superior job and was super friendly, even greeting us by name in the hallway.
Tipping the hotel housekeeping staff is really truly optional. It's nice, especially if they went above-and-beyond for you, but not always expected nor always customary. I mentioned upthread that my husband went through college on busboy tips, so he has always been a generous tipper now that he has a college grad job and can afford to tip big. I do the same.
In my husband's eyes, every busboy, every waiter/waitress, every housekeeper is a struggling college student living on mac-and-cheese like he did when he was in their shoes.
Will all admissions, this thread has gone horribly OT.
But yes, tipping the housekeeping staff is "optional" and I read somewhere (please do not ask where) that it is practiced by 27% of hotel guests. Perhaps something about the anonymity of houskeeping staff (unlike a waiter) makes it easier to depart without leaving anything.
But what really troubles me is that this generous minority ends up in a position where they make up for the hotelier's lousy wages. Somehow it just isn't right - those who follow a custom have been reduced to subsidizing others. And these more and more common, brazen, preprinted tip envelopes might as well include a request from management to the effect "would you pay our employee because we won't?"
The same applies to some extent to all aspects of tipping culture. Just wish those in tip-dependent positions were directly paid the appropriate wage (which in some situations might be low) and we could do away with it altogether.