Travelers: 5 tips on tipping

Teresa Morris is the kind of person who always leaves a tip — generous for good service, small if it's substandard.

But when the Dallas business-development manager and her husband recently split the tab with another couple at an Italian restaurant, and their friends neglected to leave a tip, she was left wondering about the whole system.

"As we left the restaurant and were getting in our car, the owner of the restaurant came running out to us and wanted to know why we didn't like the dinner," she remembers.

Why the question? Because Morris and her husband put down only a 10% tip — an amount equal to their share of a customary restaurant tip. "At first, we were embarrassed that the owner had to chase us down," she says. "But as we thought more about it we really were outraged he had the nerve to ask."

The very same thing happened to me awhile back at a Greek restaurant in Chicago. After a delicious meal of souvlaki, followed by what was quite possibly the best baklava this side of Athens, our group of five pooled its cash and handed it to the waiter. As we got up to leave, an angry-looking owner — and I mean angry in a Zeus-raining-lightning-bolts-on-the-mortals kind of way — blocked our way to the exit.

"The tip," he thundered, "is not adequate."

Let me make a few disclaimers before I go any further. I've never worked as a waiter, although I don't think that disqualifies me from writing about tipping any more than, say, a reporter without a criminal record covering prisons, or a sportscaster who's never played professional football commenting on the NFL. So to those of you who think the only person who can write about tipping is a waiter — talk to the hand.

I also have a somewhat unique perspective on tips. I grew up in Europe, where tipping customs are somewhat different than they are stateside. And my grandfather — whose surname, Eliopolous, was anglicized to Elliott in the 1920s when he arrived at Ellis Island from Greece — ran a restaurant in Charlotte, N.C., for decades. (Although I didn't know my grandfather very well, it's conceivable that he might have pulled the whole Zeus routine with a lousy tipper, come to think of it.)

Given all that, I believe the tipping system in North America is seriously flawed. It exploits service personnel such as waiters, baggage handlers and hotel staff, paying them substandard wages but relying on the generosity — or guilt — of the people they serve to make up for the shortfall in their salary. I would much prefer raising prices to cover the increase in pay or incorporating a mandatory gratuity into the final price, as they do in Europe.

But the system is what it is, and as travelers we have to work within it. So here are five tipping tips I've picked up while on the road:

1. Unless the service is utterly lacking, always tip something. The fact is, an overwhelming majority of the service staff in the United States who serve you food, bring you drinks, make your hotel bed and clean your room depend on your tips. It's important to be aware of the economics of tipping. Anyone who tells you that a gratuity is supposed to be just a reward for good service is living in la-la land. It isn't, of course. You're talking about depriving these service workers of their income when you withhold a tip, so do it only when they really deserve nothing. I only refuse to tip when things go catastrophically wrong — terrible service, a long wait, inedible food, and a "don't-care-if-you-ever-come-back" attitude.That's what a lot of travelers do, too. Tanja Rieck says she has a sliding scale for tipping. "We tip 20% for exceptional service, 15% for good service, 10% for average service and at times we have not tipped at all or very low — 1% to 5% — for poor service," says the Redwood City, Calif., social worker. That's fine with her husband, who works in the service industry and happens to also rely on tips for a living.

2. Know how much to tip. I have friends who carry little cards with pre-calculated tip amounts on them. I think that's overdoing it. I think a better idea is for a restaurant to print a "suggested gratuity" on the receipt. How much do I tip the van driver? I don't have a clue. It never hurts to ask. My rule of thumb is 20/1 — 20% of the bill or $1 for every bag you're helped with in a hotel or at the airport. I turned to Matt Turner for his tipping ideas. He ought to know about tipping, since he's an accomplished traveler and works in the tourism industry handling media relations for the state of West Virginia. He says extraordinary meal service merits up to a 30% tip. An enjoyable cab ride? $3 to $15, depending on the length. Good service from a porter? $5 to $15, if you have a lot of luggage. "A good concierge recommendation can get $10 or more if you end up with the best seats in the house for second-balcony prices," he says.

3. Know when not to tip. There are some service personnel whose forward-looking employers already take good care of them. Some hotel housekeepers, for example, are unionized and make more money than the average travel writer. They're adequately compensated and don't need or even expect a tip. And, on the other hand, there are some workers who do expect a tip, but shouldn't. That's what happened when Kepi Peterson's luggage was delayed on a recent trip to Myrtle Beach, S.C. "We made arrangements for our bags to be delivered to us that same night to my in-laws, who lived about 45 minutes from the airport," recalls the Mesa, Ariz., bookkeeper. "I could see from the document I had to sign that the delivery man was making $55 from the airline for this delivery. I didn't feel that I should have to tip him for a service I would not have needed if my luggage had arrived at the airport with me."

4. Be sensitive to local customs and practices. Always ask whether a tip is expected or if it's included in the price of your meal. There are destinations where waving a few dollars in a waiter's face might be more of an insult than a bonus, especially if you're an American. In some hotels (the all-inclusive ones, for instance), there's a no-tipping policy; in others, the gratuity is added to your bill "for your convenience" — which is great, as long as you know that it's being added. Elisabeth Datta of South Woodslee, Ontario, Canada, traveled to New Zealand last November, and was surprised when people turned down her money. "Even the shuttle driver would not take a tip," she remembers.

5. Appearances are important; tip accordingly. If you're at a business lunch or on a business trip, you shouldn't only be concerned with what the porter or waiter thinks of you — worry about what your clients or your boss thinks, too. What will a prospective customer think of you if you don't offer a gratuity? Fortunately, in an age of credit cards, you can conceal the amount on your bill. It isn't so easy when you're handing greenbacks to a concierge. If you leave your colleagues with the impression you're a cheapskate, it could affect your business.As if that's not enough, there are other rules that apply to the business lunch. "If you are holding a meeting or an interview in a restaurant and plan to stay more than an hour, then you should inform and tip the server at least $5 per hour," says Chiquita Leak, president of a security company in Las Vegas. "This usually guarantees that she won't keep disturbing you and will provide you with prompt service."

OK, I have a confession to make. This is one of those columns where I agree with the tipping tips in theory — well, they are my tips — but I don't necessarily follow them all the time.

Why? Maybe I'm a tightwad.

Then again, maybe I agree with people like Raul Zambrana, a flight attendant based in Frankfurt, Germany, who reminds me that in Deutschland, waiters get full benefits and six weeks of vacation. ("There should be no tipping," he told me. "There should be a base salary.")

But I am, by my own admission, a cautious and conservative tipper. And I'm also no mathematician, so let's just say I don't always calculate 20% accurately. I'll never forget the time I tipped a van driver $20 when I meant to give him $2. Didn't I learn about decimal points in grade school?

So you probably won't be surprised that in the end, I stepped around Zeus and fled that Greek restaurant I talked about earlier. Lucky for me, he didn't follow. So I suspect you might find my name on a Web site like Bitterwaitress.com — a hilarious online database of restaurant patrons who under tip. Probably serves me right for not taking my own advice.