I rent a car locally everymonth for a business trip. The agency sends a driver to pick me up and drop me off. Some agencies sends one of the sales people but one sends the guy who cleans the cars. He's done it several times.

Am I expected to tip him? He doesn't do anything special and the trip is taking him away from the garage where he's cleaning cars all day, so I don't think it's necessary but I'm wondering if he's expecting something.

You're assuming that this poor guy would rather see your beautiful face than work in the garage. Not necessarily so. I would tip!

I thought getting OUT of the garage and being able to go for a drive would be better than the garage.

I, too, think it is a stretch to assume that you are doing him a favor to "be able to go for a drive" rather than stay in the garage at work. As far as we know, he may hate driving in your city. I've never been picked up at home or work by a rental car agency but I would give the guy a tip. I tip the shuttle drivers, too.

I remember this thread from a year ago. You can search for the similar range of answers back there.

If the agency sends someone to pick you up, I think a tip is probably the proper thing to do. After all, they may offer this as a free service but it's not "standard" or taken advantage of by everyone. $5-10 should be sufficient.

L, why don't you go and pick up the car yourself and save yourself this problem. Are you worrying about saving the cab fare? Why don't you give the driver half the cab fare, thats fair.

I wish I hadn't asked this question but I've been curious about other people's experience. Several local car rental places advertise that they have free pick-up and drop-off as an incentive to get business. The airport locations don't do this. I'm thinking, that at $60 - $100 per day for a rental, the pick-up time is already factored in.

MOst of their local business is for people having body work done. I won't tip if the salesperson is doing the pick up because it's part of his/her earning commission. When they send someone else, I've never felt like they were doing anything special for me so I haven't tipped but in society today there's expectations to tip everyone.

My mom lives off tips so I know it's often the main income for people but sometimes it's difficult to dish out cash to everyone along the way. If I had disposible income maybe I could be more generous but right now it's not easy to pass out those $5 bills. (employer pays for the car rental, not me).