mh4ll

Restaurant was still closed, and front desk said new projected opening date was "April", with no specific date therein. Maybe you'll get lucky, but given how much it has already been pushed back, I wouldn't count on it.

Buffet was fine but nothing excellent -- cold items were good, with a nice selection of high-quality, ripe fruit and berries, and good baked items / croissants, but the hot bar was lackluster. Very good bacon but most of the other items were subpar, especially the scrambled eggs (lousy, as most buffet eggs are). Breakfast at the Andaz 5th Ave infinitely better. As a free buffet, it was fine, and the bar area where it is served is quite nice, but I cannot imagine paying anything close to the nearly $50/pp sticker price.

Rusdude

Bummer... Was there in December 2015 and didn't notice anything about the restaurant that needed changing. If they still offer in-room breakfast (free for Diamond members), I wonder if that's an option.

Will probably check out Hyatt Centric Times Square this time then. Should have better views too

LIH Prem

We know what the T&C are, that the tip is covered for Diamonds, so the only thing left is how to sign the bill if/when one is presented. You are just asking about the local custom for one specific property.

-David

JackE

But they can't read your mind. And even if they could read your mind for your general intent, they wouldn't know what you considered to be reasonable.

Maybe your best strategy is to just write in, for example, "$8.00 minus whatever the property pays." Then the server will get the money you intend and you won't have to overpay.

Me, I'm just going to depend on the property to pay their servers what they are owed, just like they pay their FDAs, gardeners and building engineers.

helvetic

So… what is the official policy in the days of Globalist. I always tip 20% on the tab at breakfast, but more than once has it ended up on my bill and being told that "tip is not included" and it would stay on the bill.

jameswes

T&C say that gratuity is included in breakfast benefit. Email/call/twitter someone at Hyatt. They should get the charge reversed with that particular hotel.

https://help.hyatt.com/en/hyatt-term...att-terms.html
Globalists will receive daily complimentary full breakfast (which includes one entrée or standard breakfast buffet, juice, and coffee, as well as tax, gratuity and service charges) for each registered guest in the room, up to a maximum of two (2) adults and two (2) children.

txhyattlvr

I think this varies by property but I know it's generally not 20% in terms of the gratuity they will automatically cover... if you tip 20% you'll likely have to ask for some portion to be removed from the final bill (which in my case is always done, but I wonder if the server is the one that gets screwed out of their tip...)

creativeguess1

I'm probably doing it wrong, but I always write "globalist tip" in the tip line. HYATT OLIVE 8, speaking to the FD and Waiter, both told me they get 20 %. But as a Client, it always seems weird leaving the tip up to Management or someone else.

JackE

If, as a Global, you write nothing on the tip line then Hyatt owes the tip.

If you wish to tip more, just leave a dollar or a hundred dollars or whatever you like oh the table.

It's as simple as that.

VegasGambler

I think, the question is, what happens when I write something on the tip line?

If I have a $23.42 breakfast and write $5 on the tip line... in my experience nothing shows up on my folio. Does that mean that the wait staff got $5, paid by the hotel? Or does it mean that they ignored what I wrote and paid them some pre-determined percentage of $23.42?

In a sense, it's not really any of my business. This is exactly what I do... I write the amount that I would normally tip. The amount that the waitstaff gets is between them and their employer. I don't inquire about how much the person who checks me in gets paid either.

JackE

From the OP: "how do you typically fill out the tip and total lines?"

My answer is leave it blank if you don't wish to leave more than what Hyatt pays. If you want the server to have more, leave a tip in cash. Easy.

MarkOK

This is what I do too, but I also don't know what is happening behind the scenes either.. I know at some places, I see my breakfast charge on my portfolio after breakfast, nearly always in those cases which disappear at noon. So, I wonder if I don't tip, if the waiter just thinks I am being a jerk because they aren't the ones that processes and sees the benefit. At one HR, I will get charged the 5$ nearly every time-- The hotel isn't following the rules, of course, but I don't know if they are or aren't tipping the waiter if I don't tip, and I would rather err towards over-tipping 5$ than to stiff the waiter.

From what I can guess on this thread is that each place sees all sorts of practices. I suppose that at most places it doesn't matter what we do.

jameswes

I feel like it's more nuanced than that though. I always worry that if I leave the line blank, then to the server it is as if I didn't leave any tip and the hotel doesn't have to pay anything out.

Personally, I do one of two things:
1) If there's an auto-included gratuity (typically 18%?), leave it as-is
2) If there's not an auto-included gratuity, I tip ~20%. And so far I've never had a hotel charge me for the tip. (A few times they've charged me for all of breakfast on accident, and then removed it once I pointed out the glob benefit. A couple of times they left the breakfast charge as eligible spend and I earned points off of the breakfast I didn't pay for

luvFclass

I try to leave the tip of 15-20% in cash most of the times if the service was decent or better. I have no idea what the hotels F&B and Management does, but I know the staff recognizes me on extended stays (HR BOS) and are extra nice to my spouse and me every morning we are there.

With cash, I am certain they get the money, a few times I wrote the tip on the invoice, and it was never on my final closing on departure.

skywalkerLAX

So you end up giving the server a 40% tip on a breakfast? 20% by yourself and 20% by the property just because you "want to make sure"?

I'm not staying at a hotel to deal with this kind of nonsense. T&C say the tip is taken care of by the property and that's the end of it for me. Definitely not going to waste a second though on this.