Envelops in Marriott Hotel - Tips for the Maid.

Ladies and Gents:
Although we have stayed at many hotels in our travels (from "We'll leave the lights on" to 5 star elegance), do you leave a tip for the
hotel maid
I know how hard they work (years ago, I did 'stint' in Housekeeping during my apprenticeship with Hilton Hotels), so I always leave a tip @
$4-5.00US per day (overseas...the same in regard to the Exchange Rate).

Envelopes in Marriott Hotels Invite Tips for Maids (awesome idea btw!)

New York — 15 Sept, 2014, 2:57 AM ET

By Beth J. Harpaz Associated Press Travel Editor

"Do you leave a tip in your hotel room for the maid? Marriott is launching a program with Maria Shriver to put envelopes in hotel rooms to encourage tipping.

The campaign, called "The Envelope Please," begins this week. Envelopes will be placed in 160,000 rooms in the U.S. and Canada. Some 750 to 1,000 hotels will participate from Marriott brands like Courtyard, Residence Inn, J.W. Marriott, Ritz-Carlton and Renaissance hotels.

The name of the person who cleans the room will be written on the envelope along with a message: "Our caring room attendants enjoyed making your stay warm and comfortable. Please feel free to leave a gratuity to express your appreciation for their efforts."

Shriver, who founded an organization called A Woman's Nation that aims to empower women, says many travelers don't realize tipping hotel room attendants is customary. "There's a huge education of the traveler that needs to occur," she said. "If you tell them, they ask, 'How do I do that?'" She said envelopes make it easy for guests to leave cash for the right person in a secure way.

So how much should you leave? Marriott International CEO Arne Sorenson says $1 to $5 per night, depending on room rate, with more for a high-priced suite".



Read More:http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/envelopes-marriott-hotels-invite-tips-maids-25503553

"The great advantage of a hotel is that it is a refuge from [everyday] life". George Barnard Shaw

Now I'll be worried If I don't tip they will treat my room as such.

I typically leave the Do Not Disturb hanger on the door my entire stay though. I never see the maid until I'm leaving.
I'm one of those guys that doesn't want to be bothered by "housekeeping". I don't want anyone in my room when I'm gone or there.

Toothpick said:

Now I'll be worried If I don't tip they will treat my room as such.

I typically leave the Do Not Disturb hanger on the door my entire stay though. I never see the maid until I'm leaving.
I'm one of those guys that doesn't want to be bothered by "housekeeping". I don't want anyone in my room when I'm gone or there.

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Especially when you had 4 towels and give you 2. Then you walk on down to the front desk and they say call housekeeping, no one was there. That was in Chicago. Now in North Phoenix at a resort they did not clean the room except for stocking the towels and beds. Skittles and jolly rancher type candy under a chair. Sorry for the rant gents. In the North Phoenix resort they have a voucher for there Starbucks (they made my iced carmel macchio with too much syrup).

Toothpick said:

Now I'll be worried If I don't tip they will treat my room as such.

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Same here. I wish we would get our act together and do the service industry like Europe does. Here is a hint- pay your employees a decent wage, and don't expect tips to make up for your shortcomings as an employer. It puts customers in an awkward position. Rant off.

on edit: what I mean is put the service charge there, right on the bill. Let me know up front how much my hotel stay or my meal is going to cost.

oc_in_fw said:

Same here. I wish we would get our act together and do the service industry like Europe does. Here is a hint- pay your employees a decent wage, and don't expect tips to make up for your shortcomings as an employer. It puts customers in an awkward position. Rant off.

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August West said:

Spoiler

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I am persevering

It's funny how I wash my own towel at home once a week, use it to dry my clean body and leave it to dry on the towel rack but at a hotel someone thinks I need new towels plus soaps and cups every day and they need to make my bed. How about I take care of the room and you can cut my bill $5.00 a day? Then when I need or want it cleaned I can pay an extra $5.00 or just carry my own damp towel to the front desk? Or just bump my bill $5.00 a day so I don't have to carry small bills.

oc_in_fw said:

Same here. I wish we would get our act together and do the service industry like Europe does. Here is a hint- pay your employees a decent wage, and don't expect tips to make up for your shortcomings as an employer. It puts customers in an awkward position. Rant off.

on edit: what I mean is put the service charge there, right on the bill. Let me know up front how much my hotel stay or my meal is going to cost.

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The housekeepers at my hotel in Australia would be lucky to get $100 in tips between them for the year. Tipping is not customary here and it is mostly international guests who'll leave something behind for housekeeping.

mikewood said:

It's funny how I wash my own towel at home once a week, use it to dry my clean body and leave it to dry on the towel rack but at a hotel someone thinks I need new towels plus soaps and cups every day and they need to make my bed. How about I take care of the room and you can cut my bill $5.00 a day? Then when I need or want it cleaned I can pay an extra $5.00 or just carry my own damp towel to the front desk? Or just bump my bill $5.00 a day so I don't have to carry small bills.

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This is now an option at some hotels. You can even scale it right back to paying more if you want to use the tv or aircon. Similar to how airlines now have add ons for luggage, inflight entertainment and the like there are some hotels following this model.

Tipping has become a sad state of affairs in the U.S. It was once a way for the rich to pay for better service and then morphed into a way for everyone to reward someone for excellent service. This was definitely a positive. Now, tipping is just a way for the customer to make up for an employer's greed and refusal to pay his/her employees a decent wage. If Marriott is so concerned about their employees, they should simply raise their wages.

Maybe they will set up a program to help their underpaid ,and often illegal,workers apply for food stamps,medical and other social services,just like Walmart does...

dougydee said:

The housekeepers at my hotel in Australia would be lucky to get $100 in tips between them for the year. Tipping is not customary here and it is mostly international guests who'll leave something behind for housekeeping.

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I know exactly what you're talking about. A few years ago a friend of mine visited me here in Las Vegas, NV. Every time we would go out somewhere I customarily left a tip for our server. My friend did not understand why I was leaving a tip for the server. Until he told me that in Oz tipping is not customary.

When I leave a tip on the bed, it is because the service was above the expected level. It is a voluntary extra, and not a kind of service charge.

I'm not surprised that some hotel/motel chains are starting to leave these "request a tip" envelopes for the housekeepers in the rooms. I worked quite a few years as a hotel desk clerk/night auditor. I've discovered that they like to "encourage" their guests to leave a gratuity for your housekeeper. Some of them are not highly paid and a tip does help them out.

Additionally, in my opinion leaving a tip for your housekeeper is not obligatory until the day you are checking out of the hotel. Although, leaving a small daily tip on your pillow daily does give the housekeeper an incentive to go "above & beyond" when it comes to your rooms day to day cleanliness. Unfortunately some will do the absolute minimum and not much else.

I've worked in the hotels/motels quite a few years. Most people don't leave tips for housekeepers.

If housekeeping does something extraordinary then maybe I tip. Like the time I was hung over in Vegas so I didn't leave the room until 4pm and was still able to get service so late in the day. But it is most certainly the exception.
Tipping has gotten out of hand - for example, even in a restaurant we tip based on meal cost, but all wines open the same, and a steak or a salad order takes the same effort to fulfill.

mretzloff said:

Tipping has become a sad state of affairs in the U.S. It was once a way for the rich to pay for better service and then morphed into a way for everyone to reward someone for excellent service. This was definitely a positive. Now, tipping is just a way for the customer to make up for an employer's greed and refusal to pay his/her employees a decent wage. If Marriott is so concerned about their employees, they should simply raise their wages.

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Agree completely. Marriott might as well be admitting in this ad campaign that they don't pay their people enough money to live. Scumbags.

I don't tip for basic room cleaning services at a hotel and have no plans to start. There's nothing exceptional about basic room cleaning - it is expected when one pays for the room. Don't expect me to be a safety net for your employees if you are too cheap to pay them a decent wage.

On a side note, I went to a BBQ joint for lunch yesterday and they had a tip jar sitting at the checkout counter. At a BBQ joint. Only thing they did for me was hand me my plate of food, and give me an empty cup for my drink. I didn't tip there either.

I keep meaning to leave tips, but usually forget. Most of my stays are one nighters though, so probably don't really require a tip.

I'm sorry, but I cannot agree with your premise.

Up-front tipping (the cliche of greasing the palm of the maitre d) is a time honored bribe, rather than a reward for services performed above the minimum standard.

And that is what I believe a tip is for; not a entitlement or subsidy to someone's base wage, but a reward for services performed above the minimum standard.

The sad state of affairs with tipping could be related to the abysmal state of the service industry. The quality of services provided is often well below the minimum standard. Having to send out a search party for your restaurant server, checking into a hotel room that isnt clean and having the hotel room "refreshed" only after the third day of your stay is what is killing tipping.

If the employer is paying the paying a wage that is in line with the local market (including all FICA, taxes, etc) - then there is no "greed" and that is the "decent wage" for that job in that market. Those establishments hiring under-the-table labor are not just greedy, they are criminals - a different topic entirely

I will say that Marriott provides a pretty good and consistent guest experience. The tip envelope is actually a return to what used to be in every hotel room years ago, although I recall it was usually a small place card with the name of the housekeeper who was assigned to my room - often signed and placed within a small tray.

If I am there for an overnight stay, I will leave $2 plus whatever change I had (to eliminate the TSA hassle). If I am there longer, I will tip according to how the room is kept up during my stay

mretzloff said:

Tipping has become a sad state of affairs in the U.S. It was once a way for the rich to pay for better service and then morphed into a way for everyone to reward someone for excellent service. This was definitely a positive. Now, tipping is just a way for the customer to make up for an employer's greed and refusal to pay his/her employees a decent wage. If Marriott is so concerned about their employees, they should simply raise their wages.

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PokerChip said:

Additionally, in my opinion leaving a tip for your housekeeper is not obligatory until the day you are checking out of the hotel.

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The only problem with this idea is that if you do intend to tip the housekeeping staff, the money is kept by the last person who cleaned your room. This might not always be the person that cleaned it from day to day. Leaving a few bucks each day insures that the person who cleaned your room that day gets the tip you so generously offered for their service.

Ever since I stayed in a motel during college and a maid decided to help themselves to the contents of my friend's wallet - I haven't tipped. Although, like many others, I haven't stayed at a hotel for more than an overnight or two and try to keep everything clean either way.