1973 Ford Pinto

I would always put a tip like this on my room bill if possible, but I always carry cash, especially when traveling, precisely because tipping is so important and you never know when you'll be in a position where a tip is a good idea.

"Be prepared" is a really good motto.

CJKatl

Which do you think looks better on an expense report? A claim that you spent some undocumented cash or a receipt that you charged something to your room/corporate card? It has nothing to do with laziness and everything to do with documentation. Companies want you to charge everything possible rather than having to issue a reimbursement check.

How sad that someone can be so judgmental in clinging to old fashioned customs as to call others lazy for not clinging to that outdated practice. It could just as easily be said that someone is so woefully out of touch if they still carry cash.

JackE

I always carry a few hundred in cash. That doesn't mean I'm going to pay for everything, or for that matter anything, in cash.

1973 Ford Pinto

exactly.

1973 Ford Pinto

Nobody is saying you should ONLY tip in cash.

Are you telling us that if you come across a situation where a tip is appropriate, but there's no way to get a receipt, you just stiff the guy?

nk15

OP, I am gonna go on a limb here and suggest that you call the hotel and ask for the $35 to be removed...

And don't intentionally add an extra tip when tip is included, it's just a waste of money.

Cpt Obvious.

CJKatl

I carry a little bit of cash, am usually a good tipper but have had to say a couple times, "I am so sorry, but I just do not have any cash on me..." Fortunately, when it's at a hotel I can leave it at the front desk later. This used to happen with Uber, where I always tip the driver, but now you can tip with your payment so it's not an issue.

pinniped

I can honestly say that the phrase "tipping is so important" has never entered my mind. Tipping and bribery in general are scourges that *should* be driven completely out of a developed economy.

No - I don't stiff waiters and such - I believe the fair way to drive tipping out of a labor market has to happen at a higher level than some individuals resisting while employers pretend the status quo is still in place. But, for example, if a restaurant went to a full no-tipping model (obviously with full transparency with its staff and compliance with all relevant labor laws) I'd be likely to give it more business over time.

Anyway, I still don't regularly carry cash, or if I do it's by chance. If I know ahead of time I'm going to need a bellhop so badly that I need to go out of my way to get ahold of a $10 or $20 bill, I'll do that. I don't stiff the guy, even though philosophically I wish there was a better way.

sdsearch

I had something somewhat similar happen to me recently, but it was different in that it was way more obvious that something was wrong and it was way more obvious what had happened.

I put in a tip for $N.00 for a free-for-Platinum breakfast, and then when I looked at my folio, I saw two charges, one for $N00, and then another for $N.00. (Thus I was over-billed by hundreds of dollars!)

Obviously, someone keyed it in once without the decimal point, and then someone later keyed it in with the decimal point because they didn't see it keyed in yet (but didn't spot that it had been keyed in, just incorrectly).

Anyway, i contacted the hotel and within hours they notified me that they had issued me a credit for $N00, and that credit showed up on my card a couple days later.

And so far Marriott hasn't taken away the $N00 x 10 points (which is how I first noticed this issue: I was wondering why i got so many points for that stay, and only then did I look at the folio). And I don't know that they will, because the hotel apparently only issued me the credit, but didn't update the folio itself. (The original folio is still what's on the Marriott website.) Which would be fine by me. (This is a personally-paid non-reimbursed stay, so I don't need a corrected folio.)

Points Scrounger

"00" implies to me you were charged zero, I thought the convention for non-specific amounts is to use "x"? As in $N xx

JackE

As originally stated, I did ask to have the charge removed and the result was a THIRD tip. I'm not sure I want to risk a FOURTH tip, LOL.

As to your second point, the service was good enough that I chose to leave a tip (beyond the voucher tip). Now whether tipping is a waste of money, that is up to each of us to decide. I would never question your not tipping a waiter.

JackE

Some restaurants have tried the no-tip approach, coupled with an increase in menu prices and employee pay. The approach, at least for the reported cases, has failed and the restaurants went back to the standard model.

At the other end of the spectrum, a restaurant local to me has added a few percent to tip the kitchen staff and blabbing about living wages. And it's not an inexpensive restaurant! I used to go there, but I find their new approach insulting to customers, aka ATM. If they think their back-of-the-house staff needs more money, they should just pay them. Also insulting is they mention that the customer can decline this service charge.

I actually like the standard approach. If the waiter or waitress does a bad job, then I'm not afraid to leave them nothing. If they do a great job, I'm happy to be generous. That said, if I were ever to order a $400 bottle of wine, I'm not going to leave an $80 tip because they did a great job pouring it into my glass.

CJKatl

The waiter will pay tax as though you left a $60 tip, let's say $15, so it will cost him that much for the pleasure of serving you. If you are not prepared to pay the tip, don't order the wine, and unless you plan to never go to that restaurant again, you should pay 15%. Otherwise, that waiter will tell everyone, and the next time you go into that restaurant, you will be pointed to and treated accordingly.

CJKatl

duplicate

s0ssos

He is using a different convention. His "N" is your "x". and 0 is a specific number, as in 500 has two 0's at the end.