Gratuities for front desk staff
 

Just wondering what general thoughts are regarding tipping front desk staff.

I'm a generous tipper, but usually only towards what I think are typical staff...waiters, concierge, bellhop, valet, housekeeping etc.
I have come across some excellent front desk staff, wanted to tip, but wasn't sure if that would be too gaudy. General google searches seem to indicate tipping FD staff is acceptable if appropriate.

Thanks!

What about the security guard, parking garage attendant, groundskeepers and store clerk?

FDA's, like those other workers, need to be compensated properly by the property. Even then, they are ultimately compensated by guests and their room charges.

Sure. And some people wonder why they never get an UG?

So you need to bribe them?

I usually get upgrades, no need to slip them $20.

That's called a bribe, and can get employees fired.

What may be satisfactory in one region or nation may be unacceptable in another. The OP needs to be specific about location.

I think the FD should tip the customers.

When I encounter great service, whether it be the FDC, concierge, housekeeping (fill in the blank), I send a note to the GM cc'ing Marriott HQ complimenting (fill in the blank) & asking that my note be put in their personnel file.

I've been told that, in some instances, the GM reads the note to everyone out loud on weekly mtgs, so the employee gets kudos (and hopefully it helps them if it comes to a raise). I normally get a letter back from HQ, although the GM probably has more input re: the employee.

Cheers.

I always tip at the front desk because I notice they take care of me better and they work hard. I'm at a Marriott now and I gave the Ops Mgr $40 in tips because she blocks a particular room for me, gets my extra pillows, left chocolate covered strawberries in the room for me as an amenity and just really makes me feel like a VIP. I also tipped the front office mgr $20 because she goes above and beyond for me as well.

Maybe it is unusual but if I feel taken care of I will tip well. And I do it everywhere. I like to find usually a couple people that I like taking care of me because they get to know my preferences and I feel more comfortable dealing with them. Case in point, last night spoke to a woman I had never met, asked for a wake up call and it was not put in.

Tips are given for service

Bribes are given to get something you may or may not be entitled to.

If you are "tipping" before you get service (or your room assignment) you are "bribing" and as far as I know the only place that's really an accepted practice is Las Vegas.

This is what I do as well. It'll probably give the employee a better overall and longer term benefit than a tip would provide.

I hate tipping period, because I feel people should be paid a wage that encourages them to do their job well. Of course, I do tip at restaurants because I know servers are not paid that wage. But I would never tip a front desk clerk.

Any kind of bribery is a good way to help a country slip down the slope of corruption.

There are lots of studies on it, but THIS summarizes it well.

Someone has to be assigned to the room next to the elevator shaft and ice machine and someone gets the really cool room with the ocean view and no noise.

I'll ponder your concern for the downfall of society from my perch overlooking the ocean !

I too am a generous tipper, however I will not tip the FD. They are in fact paid a living wage to provide excellent service.

btw, I've re-read the OP's question, and I don't see where he was suggesting tipping a FD clerk for an upgrade, which I too believe would be a bribe for future upgrades. But on the surface it looks as though the question was merely a service question.

Agreed that the OP's question may well refer to being helpful in ways other than room assignment.

In the hotels in which I worked, the acceptance of any cash or gifts by the Front Desk staff was grounds for termination. Since the Front Desk can easily give away something the hotel can sell, any cash/gift was considered a bribe.

Cash was never accepted under any circumstances. But, if a guest insisted on offering a gift, the staff to politely refuse a few times and then take it. Any food was discarded and items of value were donated.

Based on my experience, I'd say that Google is wrong. Tipping the Front Desk is not appropriate and it places the hotel staff in a very uncomfortable situation.

This is what I'd recommend. Complain up; compliment down.

If you have a problem, start at the hotel and appeal upward to the chain, if necessary. If you want to compliment an employee, do it at the corporate level. (Or cc, as SkiAdcock writes.) This process helps the hotel and the employee.

One year, our best PBX (telephone) Operator won Employee of the Year for the entire chain. One reason was because he had a history of compliments given to Corporate over many years. He got an extra week's pay and a free trip to Aruba.

When I get pulled over by a traffic cop I like to tip him for doing such a good job and protecting my safety. You have to do it discretely so his partner doesn't see and get jealous because then he might get angry. If it does happen I recommend tipping the custody sergeant because then you get a nicer cell.

I also tip the triage nurse in the ER and my paper cuts get looked after really quickly. When flying slip a $50 to the SD and they will often move somebody out of their seat and give you a nicer one.

Sound ridiculous or corrupt? Pretty much what tipping the FD to get a better room sounds like to any reasonable outsider.

So in your opinion, the OP's question was entirely ridiculous?

I may have an exception to the actual norm for not tipping FDAs.

You come down to the FD in the wee hours to retrieve your checked bag. The bell staff is gone until early morning. The FDA retrieves your luggage.

The one time this has happened to me, I considered the FDA to have two hats and tipped the one wearing the bellman's hat. She accepted.

I have done this twice.

But I have never tipped management personnel as below -

Do what you want with your money. If you want to tip someone go ahead, if its an FDA, I usually give the tip to the supervisor on duty, and ensure the person that it is for is aware, that way the FDA cannot be accused of theft or bribery. Also it usually at the end of my stay, as a thank you rather than an incentive.

I usually just pay for my room and expect that the rest is being taken care of.

If a hotel offers significant additional services, the room charge usually is quite a bit higher as well. So again, I consider that everything has been taken care of.

HTB.

No because of the context in which the OP phrased his question. That was a perfectly reasonable question.
My comment included a qualifying statement and was addressed at others.

Accepting a tip for something outside the normal function of a Front Desk Representative would have been perfectly fine where I worked.

Another example would be if the Concierge was busy or not in the lobby and someone from the Front Desk used the hotel's name to secure a dinner reservation. Or, if the Front Desk staff member delivered a package to a guest room.

Many years ago I worked Front Desk at a Marriott while working my way thru College. Never once did it even occur to me to accept a tip, (not that it was offered) for doing my job. As a premium property you are expected when hired to give outstanding service; just part of the job. Now that I'm a road-warrior, I always tip the housekeeping staff, Bellman if I use them, Concierge if something specific they do, but in lieu of tips, will write a nice letter to the GM for Front Desk, Management, and the staff as a token of appreciation. F&B/Bellman etc, rely on tipped wages, while others such as FD make a higher hourly wage and are doing their job. A letter is a nice reward for their file and should help them when their review comes around; anything else could be seen as bribery.

EDIT: I remembered that I have. I tipped the FD person at a top Dorchester Collection hotel. It was a combination of factors: superior room, genuine care about an unpleasant situation, and an unexpected complimentary drink for the trouble.

The value I get from a great FD person is much more than a bellman or valet. I think the FD tip would also actually be appreciated whereas the bellman and valet expect it. Don't get me started on how many dissapointed faces I've seen when I give a generous $2 tip to a bellman for bringing my rollerbag up on a luggage trolley after great insistance on his part.

Also, to those who say FD people are just doing their job, isn't housekeeping too?

Tipping front desk staff? Are you joking? The tackiness just never stops.

I guess I'm a bad person...

I still work a Front Desk (now at a nice, boutique non-chain hotel). I rarely receive a "tip" and I do not expect a tip. But, when a guest believes I did something above and beyond for them and wants to give me a tip (or a bottle of wine), I accept it and graciously thank the guest. Now, as an example - this Winter season (Dec-to date), I've maybe received 5-10 tips. None were offered before service - I find someone trying to bribe me to get them a better room that what was blocked or a comp upgrade disgusting. I received a nice tip from a couple where I worked all weekend on an issue with their cash card company back in Australia (emails and phone calls), a nice bottle of Pinot from a group lead because I did some extra work for them, a little tip because I found a last-second transportation provider at 11pm after the Concierge was gone. Things like that. No tips for "doing my job."
Any bell services I provide (and I have to do quite a bit when the guys are busy escorting or out driving) I give any tip money to the bell staff pool.

It's tacky to be generous when someone goes out of their way to help you? Someone who doesn't get paid a fortune, and always has to wear a smile, no matter what might be happening in their lives? OK, then.

WOW!

Well thanks for all the input everyone!

To clarify a couple of questions that were brought up:

- 3cforme - I am referring to North American properties in general
- the idea of the tipping FD staff was meant to be with regards to a provision of service in general
- JackE - the etc. was meant to include the myriad of other service staff that I didn't specifically mention
- LondonElite - this is part of the reason I posed this question - I mentioned my concern for being gaudy/tacky if tipping FD was inappropriate

It seems pretty clear I guess, with all the contrasting opinions, that there really isn't a definitive right or wrong, particularly with regards to etiquette.

Indeed, even front desk staff seem to have different opinions.

Not at all. I merely provided tales from my experiences working in hotels. I wasn't intending to speak for the entire industry. If your employer doesn't have policies against Front Desk staff accepting tips, you shouldn't feel badly for accepting them.

That said, it sounds like many of the things described sound like activities traditionally done by a Concierge. Those tasks were "tippable" where I worked.

This. I was a FDA in a California hotel (independent, not Marriott) with bellmen and housekeeping at peak hours only. Bribes for front desk services like room selection were forbidden, but when performing personal services like carrying luggage or personal items (food, video rentals, etc) up to rooms, or making up rooms outside of housekeeping hours, or driving someone to the airport (we had an on-demand courtesy shuttle) we could accept tips. We were expected to politely refuse but accept if insisted.

I assume you don't live in any kind of large city, because if you have to drive anywhere, I assume you're out of money every week from "tipping" all the homeless people at the intersections. They certainly don't get "paid a fortune," and most of them seem to smile a lot, no matter what might be happening in their lives. @:-)

The FDA is not cleaning your toilet.

This doesn't even make sense.

And your assumption is wrong. I keep a pied-a-terre in Manhattan.

I wasn't aware that tipping was related to the grossness of one's job.

I still maintain that someone running a hotel has to pay the staff appropriately. If a hotel wants to provide better service so they can charge higher rates, then they need to pay the people providing that better service and not expect guests to pay twice (higher rate and more tips).

I fully understand if one tips a person for doing something completely outside their expected role, e.g. fixing the problem with the credit card as mentioned in one of the posts. I have tipped a hotel employee (in the US) for jump starting my car after letting the light on over night -- and he didn't even want to take it ("it's my job", he said) until I told him that I didn't think it was "his job".

But I will not pay twice for housekeeping, for being checked in, or for problems being solved that shouldn't have been occurring in the first place. Hotel stuff in a upper scale full service hotel that expect to be tipped for carrying my suitcase irritate me.

HTB.

If I were to tip everyone that goes out of their way and who isn't earning a fortune, I'd be broke. A few days ago I bought a train ticket, and the man behind the counter suggested a different routing from the one I thought I wanted; it turned out to be faster and cheaper. Should I have tipped him? Or was he just doing his job in a friendly manner? One of my children's teachers recently also went out of her way to help her on a project. Should I have slipped her some money? She doesn't earn a fortune.

I tip in restaurants and taxis, mostly because it would be socially awkward not to unless there was a complete service failure, but I would much prefer it if (especially in the US) a normal living wage would be paid to waitstaff so that I don't have to make up their salary.

Has anyone ever tipped a FD staff member who escorted you to the room, showed
you around, but carried no bags, etc. I haven't but I'm always feeling like it might
be a thing.

Any extra expected tip should be included in the final bill. Period. When excellent service is given a review should be submitted at tripadvisor or somewhere else.
I love Japan for that. No fuss, no tip is accepted.

Read somewhere that some are even tipping housekeepers in america. And now this tipping FD. Why not tip police officers and doctors...
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