Do your guests tip you?

[Donald28]

I rarely get a tip. I don't expect one and almost never get one. However, there are the rare few guests that show their appreciation for what I do with a tip. Of the 160+ bookings I've had so far, I belive only 4 have tipped. A couple $10 tips, one $20 tip and recently a $50 tip! The $50 tip was for a one night stay. 

I'm always blown away by people who tip. I usually find airbnb guests to be of the average sort... not greedy but not very spendy either. I always shake my head in disbelief at the guests who literally take EVERYTHING from the fridge and snack area with them when they check out. These guests don't "get" the idea that the drinks & snacks are provided for your use while staying. Your paid stay doesn't necessarily pay for ALL the drinks and snacks in the property and demand that you take everything. LOL! 

It's fun seeing how different people are. Some tip, some tread lightly and leave things for future guests and some TAKE EVERYTHING. How can we be so different?

[Sarah977]

I've never had anyone tip me, but I have had 3 separate guests whose flights were overbooked or delayed for some reason and didn't make it til the second day of their booking- when I offered to refund them the day they missed, they said, no way, my place was such great value. So I guess that's a tip of sorts. 

And several guests have brought me small thoughtful gifts, left me the good books they finished reading, come home with a bottle of wine or chocolates to share, etc.

[Robin4]

@Donald28

In the land of tips, that absolutely staggers me Don.

Tipping was the one side of American culture I did not like because it breeds a lot of 'bottom dwellers'!

Workers do not have pride in what they do any more because they don't have to. They are paid appearnace money to turn up and they expect an automatic right to 25-32% for items that are not ordered and service they did not provide.

Boarding a cruise ship in NY  the passenger ahead of us at the gate went to put his luggage on trolleys that HAL had put there for just that, luggage. As this passenger went to put his bags on the trolley he was forcefully instructed to put the bags on the ground. This big fellow picked the bags up and threw them in the direction of the trolley, one did not even make it onto the trolley and then this big guy stood in front of the passenger with his hand out and said...."Well we don't do this for nothing you know"!!

After a while you (as a stranger to the area) become afraid to even ask for directions for fear that ever lurking hand will appear in front of you. Helping someone for the sake of helping is slowly being bred out of the American culture! And that is so sad because America as a nation has given so much of itself to the rest of the world in the past.

In this world people work or they beg....and America is unfortunately becoming a country of beggars!

But you are right Don in that many guests feel, if they see it in a listing they have an automatic right to it, and that is not ok.

But for you to only get 4 tips in 160 guests in the United States.....that amazes me, I get better than that here and Australia is not a tipping culture! Quite often I will walk into the cottage after a guest has departed and they will have left a bottle of wine for me or a box of chocolates...even had one who bought at the local butcher 4 nice fillets steaks and left them in the fridge to replace ones we shared a few nights before!

I don't know. I will never figure America out Don. I thought a host of your calibre would be tipped by every guest. I would not dream of walking out of a US B&B and not leave a tip! I figure I would get lynched before I got to the airport!!

Cheers....Rob

[Sarah977]

@Robin4   One of the problems re tipping in the US is that many professions are simply not paid a living wage. Different jobs have different minimum wages. Wait staff in restaurants are only paid something like $2 or $3/hr. I have been told, the employers expect them to make it up in tips. One of my guests told me she had been working in the restaurant industry for years and was presently a hostess in a nice restaurant. She gets NO SALARY. The management expects the customers to tip her well enough for her to support herself and her teenage son. Therefore, workers are not getting tipped for good service, which was the original idea of a tip, but in order to be able to pay their rent, put gas in their car and food on the table, etc. This is such a terrible state of affairs. 

Many people say that Canadians are cheap- they don't tip well. I've had to explain to people that Canada has a minimum wage (it's still not great)- it doesn't matter if you're a ditch digger or a waitress, the minimum wage is the same- about $10-$12CAN/hr. depending on the province. So many Canadians who aren't well travelled have no idea that the the person serving them in another country may be getting paid absolute peanuts and depends on tips to survive.

[Robin4]

@Sarah977

Well that is criminal on the part of the government to allow that to happen 

Here in Australia we have an absolute minimum wage and that wage is now currently around $18 per hour. Employers who do not set minmum wage rates are fined and in some instances where it has been systemic they are jailed.

Wait staff in a resteraunt are paid on a Sunday $50 per hr.

For an employer to exploit the services of an employee by expecting them to staff their premises in a competent and welcoming manner, be on duty rain hail or shine for no reward whatsoever to purely exist on what some customer is prepared to give them after already paying the establish for that food an service. I have no words for that!!

How on earth can that be legal? 

Everyone in a civilised country has the basic right to expect a fair return for a fair effort and what you are talking about here is 3rd world stuff where people are forced to grovel to get by.

Cheers....Rob

[Lisa723]

In my house manual I say please feel free to leave a tip for the cleaner (not me) but this is of course completely optional.  I'd say 1 in 8 or so does.

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Donald28

Korea does not have a tipping culture and in general the cost of "service" is considered included in the total price (as well as tax) on the tag so I personally think it is very misleading to have a price tag then add tax, then also have to add a tip. Employers in Korea are legally required to pay a living wage so the concept of expecting some to work "for free" and make a living based on tips is unimaginable. 

I do not expect a tip at all. To be totally honest, if a guest were to leave me (host) a tip I think I'd have very mixed feelings and maybe even feel a teeny bit offended. In my mind, it is implied that you tip someone when you think they are "beneath" you because you wouldn't tip someone you see as your equal 🙂 I'd be excited and happy to recieve a small gift or even a hand written note expressing thanks.... but a $20 tip? Hmmmm.......

[Rebecca181]

@Donald28 It never even crossed my mind that a guest might leave a tip for me. However, I do have guests leave us little gifts, and these mean a great deal to me. I have had guests (both adults and children) create home-made 'Thank You' cards with drawings of my gardens and flowers with the art supplies I leave out; I've had beautiful origame swans placed on a window sill for me to find; a recent guest brought me a jar of honey made by his bees in North Carolina (he is a bee-keeper). It is a wonderful feeling to receive these thoughtful expressions of thanks and such community-minded exchanges are one of the things I like most about being a host with Airbnb. But if someone left me a tip, I wouldn't mind, because we do all of the cleaning so I would attribute it as a tip toward the cleaners (which happen to be me and my partner/co-host).

[Paul154]

@Donald28

My experience with cash tips is simiar to yours. One $10 tip, One $20 tip and one $50 tip.

Those tips did make me happy. However, because so few people tip, I don't do special things anymore like fresh flowers or wine or chocolates. My guests are telling me those special touches are not important.

Worse, Airbnb has an anti-tipping policy. Airbnb suggests that we as hosts want 5 star ratings and hand written notes more than cash tips. There is no line item for tips 😞

Airbnb's anti-tipping policy is the only reason I would leave for a competitor. 

[Sarah977]

@Paul154   Seriously, I didn't know about an Airbnb anti-tipping policy. Jeez, next they'll be dictating what clothing is appropriate for hosts to wear when greeting guests.

[Donald28]

I didnt either. Ive never used airbnb as a guest. Are guests told NO TIPPING in an email for each booking? 

[Paul154]

I may have spoken too soon. I had wished to cut and paste Airbnb's tipping policy for this thread.

It seems that it  may have been rescinded.  I went to help and entered "cash tip" and "tip". Nothing addressing tipping came up in Search. 

So maybe Airbnb is no longer anti-tipping. It is now ambivalent.

I guess that is an improvement, but it certainly is not like Uber's or Lyft's tipping page presented during review.

[Sarah977]

@Paul154   I have found that just because something is not addressed in the Help search engine doesn't mean it doesn't exist. At one point I saw that my time zone was incorrect- I know I was able to change it, yet now I can't remember how I managed to do it. Another host asked on here the other day how to correct the time zone but that doesn't appear in Help. Yet I know I found a way to do it a few months ago.

[Marzena4]

Never ever received any tip... And don't care about any now.

[Bryan10]

Here in the UK we have a minimum wage too (about £8 / US$11 / hour), so tipping is not as common as in the US. It's a frequent bone of contention, and a bit of a minefield for travellers, as customs vary a lot around the world. 

I generally don't recieve tips via Airbnb guests, but I recall being left a few quid once, when a guest left the sheets in a particularly disgusting state (I'll spare you the details in case you're eating breakfast). I earned the tip that day lol.