tipping in argentina
 

Hi,
We head to Argentina tomorrow. We have everything all set with Argentina Escapes. I have one quick question. How much should we tip for example, our driver from the airport to our hotel. Or our guide in Mendoza. Any guidelines? Thanks,

Kris

Tipping is a town in China :-)

About 10% could be a general rule, depending on the service, but it is NOT mandatory.

Unlike US cab drivers, our cabbies don't expect the locals to tip them much, but may expect a little from tourists, such as rounding up to the nearest peso, to help with the small change, which is always a problem in Argentina.

We generally went with 10% and people seemed pleased. And along the lines of what avrooster has said - try to hang on to small bills as much as possible. We didn't even deal with coins much and we found that very few people were thrilled about breaking large bills. Unfortunately that's what we got at the currency exchange. I did find that in stores if they asked if I had anything smaller, I would just say I was sorry, that I didn't and then they would change it for me. We learned quickly to hang on to the smaller bills for use in the cabs since they rarely had change available. And we just rounded up to the next denomination up. Generally our cab rides cost about 7-8 pesos and we would give the diver a 10. A couple of them actually tried to give us change and we just waved them off with a smile.

For the guides and the drivers from the airport we probably tipped higher than most, but again we tried to go with a 10% rule as best we could figure. We generally figure that an extra dollar or two is not going to break the trip budget and we'd rather err of the side of being too generous than too cheap.

Ditto to jcasale's comments, both on the tipping amount and the strong suggestion to keep your money in small denominations. In fact, although our ATM transaction limit was 300 pesos, we would take out 290 instead so that we wouldn't be stuck with all A$100 bills.

another nice gesture would be..to tip 10% for your service and 5 % to avrooster:)

avrooster my commisssion is only
1 % :)

Percy

Thank you very much, Percy!

Much obliged!

Important question:

Would your cut be 1 point, in other words 20% of my hard earned tip, or 1% of whatever I get?

LOL!!!!!

1 % of whatever you get, I am not greedy !! :)

Percy

Anyone with a name like Percy can't possibly be greedy, right? LOL!!!

Your are right avrooster.

But you give so much good advice about Buenos Aires..that I just figured you deserve a tip:)

Percy