Jaunted

Tipping

Tip of the Iceberg

May 24, 2006 at 10:00 AM | 0 Comments

Feel like you're been mugged by ambiguously titled "service charges"? Confused by the recent popularity of the "mandatory gratuity"? You're not alone--they've both become more prevalent in the U.S. in recent months, and many travelers are not happy about it.

Many of the gripes circle around the new mandatory gratuity for skycaps at airport curbside check-in, first instituted by American and United. Instead of tipping the skycap, fliers now pay a $2 fee. Tipping is optional beyond that, but the fee ostensibly pays the skycap's wage, which they receive plus benefits and bonuses for the number of bags that they check. Still, some feel extorted; skycaps may claim that they don't see any of the service fee, and fliers worry that their bags may end up in Topeka if they don't tip on top of the fee.

Hotels lead the way with this practice. There's the resort fee, plus some chains are adding mandatory gratuities to the bill in place of tipping bellmen and maids. Naturally, they make no effort to explain which system they use to the guests, who often tip beyond what they would have in the original system.

We've had plenty of experience in the service industry, and we can tell you that more tips are good--people don't tip as much as they should, on average. Tricking them into it and making guests feel powerless to withold the tip, however, is not the solution. Equipping the best employees with cattle prods to deal with the cheapest (and usually unruliest) guests is a better way--that's a concept we could support.

Image via DelScorchoSauce/Flickr]

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