That's why I have been avoiding the Caribbean for vacation for years now. American tourists spoil the entire region with their obsession to tip everyone and their dog.

...I spend most of my time in Asia ... I am happy !

There are certain places where the realisation that dumb foreigners will tip absurd sums of money (say several dollars for carrying a bag in Indonesia or somewhere like that) can lead to outright demands for tips, and if the 'tip' is not good enough, a demand for more. You can get some terrible service as a direct consequence of people inappropriately tipping in countries where it isn't expected (such as Asia).

The service in Egypt is pretty hellish, and tipping is the norm there. I don't think you can make generalisations about service standards based on a sample size of one or two countries.

Really? The guy asking you if you want more is doing the restaurant owner a favour, more than anything else. Sure you might not get your glass of ice water refilled constantly, but more food = profit for the restaurant, and servers will have been made aware of that.

We had a good time in Grenada. The flight connections to the US are very poor, so most of the tourists are British. Actually I think it's the same with a lot of places in the region, due to historical connections with the UK.

The Cancun area of course is a completely different story.... I believe the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, Jamaica and Aruba also get a lot of American visitors.

"Originally Posted by KSinNYC
To all those who yell "oh we don't have a tipping culture in MY country"... if certain types of employment was exempted from minimum wage laws, I'm pretty sure that a tipping culture would develop - and quickly.

MrH:

It didn't in the UK when the minimum wage was abolished."

Yeah right - that's why so many of the restaurants that I visit in the UK automatically add an 'optional' 12.5% service charge, in addition to leaving a line for a tip on top of that You ever tried having the 'optional' removed? They don't like doing it & make you feel like you're the lowest form of scum. Being American I'll tip if I have good service, but if I have crap service I don't feel a need to tip & there have been some times in the UK where I've had crap service & asked for the 'optional' to be taken off. You want to really make it optional - don't put it on there in the first place, or have a 'suggested' like you see at some restaurants under where you sign the bill but not automatically added.

And while I try to keep up w/ customs in other countries, there have been a few times when I've had to do last-minute trips & didn't have time to study what the tipping custom was, so I tipped in hopes of not offending someone. Found out when I returned that those countries (not Asia btw) didn't tip, but of course none of the waiters or cab drivers said oh we don't do that here, keep the tip

To the OP - other than the shuttle driver, your list of how to avoid tips will work. It's not the way I would want to travel, but to each their own.

Cheers.

This thread has quickly surpassed tl;dr status for me (too long; didn't read)

But a word of advice for our Baltic friend and others who may (understandably) be unaccustomed to the tipping habits in the US and similar countries -

In restaurants in may areas of the US, the waiter/waitress may not be working for a paycheck - their pay is purely in the tips that they make. This may seem surprising, but it's perfectly legal here, so this is why not tipping is done only if the service was [u]completely[/u
] unsatisfactory... to the point where a complaint to the manager is also in order.

There are also jurisdictions where there is a separate minimum wage for waiter/waitress jobs which is substantially lower than the common minimum wage.

In Washington DC, where I am, this is a common case in many (but not all!) restaurants. The waiter/waitress essentially has only permission to work there. The money they make comes from the tips they earn. On top of that, at closing time they have to "tip out" the chef, ma�tre d�, and sometimes even the bar tender(!) and this cuts further into what they take home. If you leave the tip on your CC slip, then they may only see that at the end of the month.

So, moral of the story is that yes you can come and never tip, but it won't go unnoticed. 15-20% of the pre-tax total is normal.

/dale

totally agree... i'll tip well if the service is good, regardless of whether tipping is the norm ornot.
especially if the service is top-notch. very inclined to tip.

but in the US, if bad service is given... can we really not tip?

Really? The waiters kind of work for commission (tips). I don;t think that is legal here in Canada. The general minimum wage in my province which Toronto is in is $9.50 an hour. For someone working in a bar/restaurant it is $8.25. So the waiter only has to make $1.25 an hour to get to minimum wage. Like I said before.. If all their customers only tip them $1 per meal, instead of the 15% or whatever, they will make way more than the minimum wage..

I think what is happening in some US restaurants in terms of not paying their staff is almost like slavery or exploitation. Sure they have a choice of not working there. but surely if the restaurants here in Canada can pay their staff, the ones in the US can too..

http://www.labour.gov.on.ca/english/...de/minwage.php

I don't see anything wrong with the OP proposes to do, although I question whether it's worth his visiting America with all the restrictions he has placed on himself.

Yes, but to leave zero, there should be serious failures. I have never left 0, but i have on a couple of occasions left less than ten percent.

Opening scene in Resevoir dogs:

Nice Guy Eddie: C'mon, throw in a buck!
Mr. Pink: Uh-uh, I don't tip.
Nice Guy Eddie: You don't tip?
Mr. Pink: Nah, I don't believe in it.
Nice Guy Eddie: You don't believe in tipping?
Mr. Blue: You know what these chicks make? They make s**t.
Mr. Pink: Don't give me that. She don't make enough money that she can quit.
Nice Guy Eddie: I don't even know a f*****g Jew who'd have the b***s to say that. Let me get this straight: you don't ever tip?
Mr. Pink: I don't tip because society says I have to. All right, if someone deserves a tip, if they really put forth an effort, I'll give them something a little something extra. But this tipping automatically, it's for the birds. As far as I'm concerned, they're just doing their job.
Mr. Blue: Hey, our girl was nice.
Mr. Pink: She was okay. She wasn't anything special.
Mr. Blue: What's special? Take you in the back and suck your d**k?
Nice Guy Eddie: I'd go over twelve percent for that.

If you can't afford to tip, you can't afford to go out.

Servers in America make their living off tips. Not like in Europe where the law requires bars/restaurants to pay servers at least minimum wage.

Stay home we got enough cheapskates visiting already (probably from Canada).

mike

Not sure if u're referring to me or the OP. I'm chiding e OP to stay home if he dont wanna tip. For me, I tip generously when I travel and yes I get treated like royalty and ppl started calling me by first name as soon as couple of hrs later. I enjoy giving. No, I'm not wealthy but I part with my hard earned money with much ease.

Nonsense do they have people who work on commission only in Canada? We have one system which works here you have another presumably you are happy with... so spare us the slavey/exploitation crap... I dont think we should really care how "they do it up there"

mike

I confess to being a bit baffled by this discussion. As someone from a tipping culture (US) who's been living for a long time in the ultimate non-tipping culture (China)--and who has travelled around plenty of other places falling in between those extremes--I stopped making judgments about "Who's System is Right?" a long time ago. There's just no magic one-size-fits-all- international answer on the tipping situation. And I can't control the local cultural philosophy, economic situation, political/taxation system of workers, etc. but I can control myself, my attitude and my choices.

So, at the end of the day, IMHO when travelling it seems to be more important to get the most value for your money under whatever the local norm system is. As with airline tickets, the components are less important than the final "all-in" price including taxes and service fees, as it's the latter that represents the ultimate cash going out of your clutches and into someone elses.

When I travel to the USA and eat out, I mentally figure in an approximate all-in price with tax and tip before I walk in the door--so I know what kind of restaurant door I can afford to walk in. In a European restaurant, I don't have to do the mental arithmetic step (unless it's one of those "+ service charge" added at the bottom). But though there may be no obvious tipping involved, the money is leaving my wallet just the same. In China outside of fancy hotel restaurants, there is no mental arithmetic involved--what's on the menu is exactly what you pay. HOW the money leaves my wallet (one big cash payment, or split out the tipping part) is of less concern to me than the absolute dollar, euro, yuan, pound, baht, etc. If my all-in price for a treat is a little steep, it gets balanced out with a low cost/low service option somewhere else. If at the end of the day, I get overall fair value for my money, I'm OK regardless of the local system.

With respect to developING countries that do not have a general tipping culture, I do think it is important to make personal choices that don't encourage the practice. In the last year, I can only recall 3 (three) occasions in China where I gave a tip: two times to Beijing cabbies (tip as a small round-up of fare) and once to a hotel bellhop (small amount of cash outright)--but there were some special circumstances surrounding these situations and in all cases, I told them why their services were deemed worthy of extra merit.

If the OP's ultimate objective for this trip to the USA is to avoid tipping situations, then as stated by others, the OP's tactics are quite reasonable with the exception of the minibar/lounge item. USA university students and non-student local penny-pinchers use the same tactics, all OK under the local USA rules-of-the-game. If the OP's ultimate trip objective is something else, then perhaps he can consider mixing up his options and being a bit less dogmatic about the tipping issue--and truly, I'm not making any judgments on his choices. Horses for courses.