Please don't feel compelled to leave tips for your hotel maid. A very small percentage of hotel guests actually do this.

Of course you should feel free to tip if you want, whether because you've asked a special favor or left the room a mess or have a sense of pity for the maid (as most of the posters who tip here seem to), but it's really not the norm.

what brian said.

I agree with AA and tip maids daily...$2-5. IMO they are the most appreciative of tips in a hotel...as opposed to doormen or bellmen..that have come to expect frequent tips.

As to whether you tip on the pre-tax or the after-tax amount:

First of all, I agree that the difference is small. If you want to completely ignore the difference because it's so small, feel free.

The main point, however, is that the U.S. IRS calculates the tips it expects servers to report as income, based on the pre-tax level. In other words, the IRS assumes that a server in Delaware (no sales tax) will make the same amount of tips (assuming, or course, that they make the same amount of sales) as a server in New York (large sales tax).

The IRS expects that you will tip the same amount to both servers. So I do.

Re: TIP (from Wikipedia)

The word "tip" is often inaccurately claimed to be an acronym for terms such as "to insure prompt service", "to insure proper service", "to improve performance", and "to insure promptness". However, this etymology contradicts the Oxford English Dictionary and is probably an example of a backronym. Moreover, all of these backronyms incorrectly require the word "insure" instead of the correct "ensure".

Anyone out there naive enough to think that servers claim all of their tips on their tax return?

These days some servers have to claim all of their tips.

I have a friend who works as a bartendar. The cash register/computer system calculates all of her sales. If the customer pays with a credit card (as most do, it has access to actual tip data). If the customer pays in cash, the computer assumes an 8% tip (which is low, but not many people pay in cash these days).

Needless to say her income is captured pretty effectively by this system, it appears on her W2 and she pays taxes on alomost everything she makes.

Not like the good old days when I was a waitress in college and could claim $10 a shift when I was making $100....

Waiter in a restaurant? 20% on total bill (unless the service was really horrible).

Maid cleaning the room in your hotel? (and where do you leave this?) - $1-$2 a day, on the pillow or in the provided envelope

Someone who takes your bags to your room? usually $5.00 - 10.00 depending on the # of bags (we stay in hotels that are $200 - 300 a night - probably less for a cheaper hotel)

A tour guide on a group day trip? Depends how big the group is (10 or 50) and how well they did and the price of the tour, length of the tour (8 hours or 3 days?).... I have given $5.00 to $50.00 depending on the circumstances - I usually ask others on the tour what they are tipping...


A tour guide on a personalised day trip? If they did a great job, I usually give 20% of the tour price.

Fast food restaurants? Nothing or perhaps spare change if there is a tip jar

I never leave a tip of less than 15%. If the service has been poor - or the staff surly - I make a complaint to the manager. And have stiffed really bad staff - and told them why I was doing so. Just be sure not to penalize them for someting not their fault - that is, the dish is poorly prepared.

But you do have the right to expect prompt and couteous service for your 20%.

Susie--Are you thoroughly confused now?

AND, note that the ONLY ones who have to claim (i.e., are monitored and tips estimated)their gratuities this way are those who make less than the U.S. minimum wage, on the basis of expectation of tips. (So, feel free not to tip for things you have paid through the nose for already!)

WOW - so much information...

Thanks everyone, I think I have it now - 15-20% on after tax amount, a couple of dollars for the maid each day, a couple of dollars if they take my (extremely overloaded) bag for me. With the current exchange rate it's not so bad from our end!!

Look forward to seeing your wonderful country in September!!

Susie, almost correct.. 15-20% on the BEFORE TAX amount. :)

(or like several others here, to figure out the tip easily, double the tax on the bill. Here in my city, the tax is 8.25%, so works out well to just double it.)

There's absolutely no need to base a restaurant tip on the amount of food PLUS sales tax. The server has nothing to do with the tax, after all.

In California it's easy to calculate restaurant tips, as the sales tax is somewhere around 7.5%. So just double the tax to get a ballpark figure for the tip.

Hotel housekeepers are not well paid and do a job that can be unpleasant. We usually tip at least $2 per day each day, as maids can change during the course of a stay. If there's no envelope provided, leave the money on a pillow.

Just one comment. I enjoyed hearing once again that TIPS stands for "To insure prompt service" -- but that is so meaningless. If it were true, one would tip when one sat down. Do you know anyone who does that? I don't.

And I am appalled that anyone would seriously consider tipping only 10% even for just so-so service in a decent restaurant!

And also, tax isn't necessarily the same across a whole state. Here in Los Angeles County, it's 8.25%, however, down in Orange County, about an hour down the freeway from me, it's less.I was just shopping there last weekend and didn't notice the percentage on my purchases. But, I thing it's in the 7.75% range which is why I try to buy my high end items down there when I'm out shopping at South Coast Plaza Mall in Costa Mesa.
Better yet, shopping/eating in Hawaii(Honolulu) is even better as their tax is still in the 5%/plus range.
So,if you can,try to find out the tax rates for the different areas you plan to go to if you're going to do any big shopping. I go crazy at, for example, Louis Vuitton in Honolulu as the prices are lower than here in L.A., plus the tax is also lower. Happy Travels!

susieQ, my two bob’s worth, from another Australian.

Don't forget the taxi drivers, who I think also expect something like 15% plus $1 per bag handled.

At first we forgot about the maids and then felt bad about that, as waiters and bartenders in the US can do very well despite their miniscule hourly wage. Mds have to get by on a small hourly rate in the absence of tips.

But if you talk to Americans you won't find perfect consensus in all areas. One well-travelled lady of my acquaintance told me she never tips maids; a hotel receptionist told me she hardly ever tips cabbies "because they're so rude and incompetent around here".

(Later we had occasion to discover just how incompetent when our driver flatly denied the existence of the Oakland Airport/Coliseum BART station. Having already used it, though, I felt myself on firm ground and argued just as flatly, but found ourselves at an entirely different station anyway. As it was on the same line we decided to quit while we were behind. I mention this experience as one of the few where we undertipped.)

We refused to tip only once, in the Old Faithful Inn at Yellowstone. It was the end of the season, our waitress could hardly be induced to acknowledge our existence, everything moved at a snail's pace and the meal was very ordinary. Earlier, at the Fairmont in Lake Louise, Canada, we’d cursed ourselves for tipping the sluggish, unfriendly and offhand waitress in the Saloon. But these were very much the exception, and as a rule tipping in the US is not an option. While the custom can grate, you must remind yourself that people need those tips to pay the rent.

While the system may offend an Australian's egalitarianism, it tends to produce faster and more professional, if not more friendly, service. The typical waiter's cameraderie is somewhat more manufactured than we're used to.

When it comes to large American organisations like airlines, as a rule you can expect brisker and less personal service, and a pronounced aversion to bending the rules by even a millimetre. This is probably due to the stress caused by corporate downsizing more than anything – I’ve been told that service in this area is not what it was.

Be polite and friendly yourself, but keep in mind that the waiter has no interest in being your mate. Americans tend to be more demanding of service personnel, and less forgiving of mistakes, than us, although they do get pushed around terribly by their airlines. Australian waiters often see visiting Americans as picky and even rude, but it's just a culturally determined different mindset. You, I’m sure, will find ordinary Americans welcoming and kind people.

I might mention that we're as travellers we're in the budget-with-the odd-splurge category. That being the case we learned pretty quickly that it pays to be self-reliant and limit the number of hands that grasp eagerly for your luggage. Packing light makes this easier to manage. One can certainly swan around like Lord and Lady Muck and let the peons carry one's bags everywhere, but it will cost.

Enjoy your trip - it's a great country to visit.

"If it were true, one would tip when one sat down. Do you know anyone who does that? I don't"

It seems to me that there are more and more restaurants (not fine dining, of course, but BBQ joints, family places, etc.) where you order at a counter and then the food is brought to the table. In many cases, when you use a credit card is these places, there's a place for the tip. I realize that may just be the way the form is set up. But it irritates me. You are, in essense, being asked to tip before you've gotten any service. I feel like a jerk drawing a line through the tip portion. But I'm not going to tip <i>before</i> I've been served. Heck, the service may be so good that they deserve a <i>larger</i> than usual tip!

NeilOz- since I've never been to Australia, I cannot say what a &quot;typical&quot; restaurant meal costs. I can tell you it is a lot cheaper to eat in most American cities than in pretty much any European city I've been in. (i.e a plate of plain pasta with tomato sauce in Rome might be 13Euros ($20), in Dallas area, most perfectly fine Italian diners can get a good plate of the same thing for half of that.)

So, if restaurants are generally more expensive in Australia, then the tip to the American server shouldn't be too much of a hardship. It would be tit for tat. :)

sarge, I didn't say that tipping in the US is a hardship and in fact we did find American restaurant prices (disregarding the exchange rate) somewhat lower than their Australian equivalents.

Clearly, if US waiters received a living wage plus 0-10% tips as in Australia their employers would have to increase prices to cover the wages bill.

American visitors to Australia do often complain about &quot;sticker shock&quot; in restaurant prices. In part this may be a self-inflicted wound, as they assume they should tip 15-20%, as at home. Also the prices on the menu include our counterpart of US sales taxes. In addition, there's no stigma attached to bringing your own wine in most Australian restaurants, which makes a significant difference to the final bill.

Overall there's still a difference, but in my experience nothing like the Rome-Texas disparity you mention. I seldom order pasta in a restaurant because I prefer to have something I can't make just as well and easily at home, but I wouldn't expect to pay anything like US$20 for an ordinary dish like that here.