Helping to spread the tipping culture to areas where it is not currently practiced has an impact on every traveller to, or resident of, that area.

Sorry you feel compelled to make these sweeping judgments without getting to know me first. I don't think I need to go into detail other than to say I have been traveling and working abroad for 25 years and don't need to be lectured by anonymous message board participants with big anonymous cojones. You are free to engage in judgmental self indulgence and to make assumptions. Leaving one small tip in a non tipping country should not incite the kind of self righteous preaching that has resulted here. You are free to disagree. I will let this be my final word on the matter. I'm sure your intentions are good.

That's an invitation for the server to add a "tip" himself. And if you try to challenge it, they show the validly signed and filled out charge slip.

I both agree and disagree. If you rewrite the total on the bottom, I think you're fine. I draw through the tip line every time, myself.

This week I was at an Asian hotel where they charge 10% service charge. They handed me a credit card slip with a tip line. I had a little chuckle, crossed it off, and totaled it and signed it.

Methinks you are the self-righteous one, for acting how you prefer even when the local culture frowns upon it.
No need for the DYKWIA attitude, you're not the only one here who has been traveling for 25 years, you know...

I'd heard that there was a legendary FT poster who had been traveling for an astonishing 25 years, but until now I always thought it was an urban myth :D

I would have just handed it back to him & picked up one on my own. But then again I dont tolerate BS like that & dont mind standing up to bullies & entitlement jerks like this.

I wish the U.S. would institute a VAT so the price would be the price. I am tired of the entitlement addicted service industry. Wasn't 10% standard like 5-10 years ago? Now you're a war criminal if you don't tip every jerk waiter 20% for lousy service.

No, 10% was not standard 5-10 years ago; 15%-20% was already standard when I came of age in the early 1990s (at least in the Northeast and West Coast)... that's 20 years ago or a little over now... and people were already complaining then that it used to be 10%, but I'm not clear whether that was recent or whether they were nostalgic for further back

As far as I can tell, 15% is still a perfectly acceptable tip.

Huh? I don't think VAT has anything to do with a tip or service charge.

Never knew there was a rule that a poster on FT had to "get to know" someone before offering thoughts or criticisms.

My final word on the matter is "When in Rome..."

That part didn't make sense to me either, although the "sales tax added at the register rather than on the price advertised" norm here in the US is obnoxious.

(Don't need a VAT to fix it, as a minority of businesses that value quick transaction times over appearing to have lower prices, or which have captive customers, already post tax-inclusive prices...)

This isn't really a situation of overly aggressive requests, but it's uncomfortable all the same. Here in Chile when you pay by CC there's no line for the tip - it has to be added in at the moment the card is processed, so every server, everywhere, will ask you directly if the tip should be included. Usually it's not a problem, but when you don't want to leave a tip, or less than 10%, it can be awkward. Having the option to fill in a line (or not) on the slip or leave some change (or not) once the server walks away is one thing, but having to say "no" to him/her directly takes some getting used to. Luckily (?) service here is uniformly crappy, so I got used to it quickly.

Can't you say you will leave the tip in cash?

That is an invitation to them to add whatever they want as a tip. How would you ever dispute the extra charge?

Always fill out the total line to make alterations easier to detect.