Originally Posted by
thegeneral
"That's insane. It should've been $13 with a blank line OR $18 and no extra blank line, in my opinion."
Other people disagree with you. It's quite easy for you to not add a tip than it is to have the room service attendee go back downstairs, print another bill and bring it back up to the room.
I don't get it -- if I write in a tip and then sign, they have to go down and print another bill to bring back up?
Anyway, my point is that I find it purposefully deceitful to include gratuity and then still have a line for gratuity. It banks on people not reading their bill and just tacking on 15%-20% and signing out of habit. Restaurants that automatically include gratuity on groups over 5, for instance, and then still leave a line for a tip are doing the same thing. And yes, it is deliberate.
Originally Posted by
thegeneral
An easy solution for this is to simply ask the room service staff who show up at your room if this includes gratuity. They will say yes it does. What you should remember though, is they only get a small piece of this. It goes into a gratuity pool that also lines the pockets of managers who sit in offices and don't give you direct service.
Personally, I will often add a few bucks, but keep it in the 5-10% range.
I would think that writing in any extra tip on the bill also goes into that same pool when it is processed, so that's really a moot point unless you're giving the person 5-10% in cash. Tip pooling is anathema to me -- I want to tip the person giving me good service. If it's automatic, or pooled either way, the slackers and jerks get a cut of what I intended to give to the person serving me by way of thanks.
I'm not stingy when I receive good service, but having been a bartender and waiter years ago and knowing how the game is played by servers and restaurants certainly jaded me to the entire tipping phenomenon.
peace,
~Ben~