Even hotel booking websites are now pleading for tips just for reserving a room: ‘This is organized crime'

Yahoo

4 days ago

Tipping culture has seemingly seeped into nearly every aspect of modern life, with everywhere from automated self-checkout kiosks at retail stores to supermarket lines suddenly stuffing a jar — or the dreaded tablet — in customers' faces.
The most recent to hop on the tipping train? Budget travel sites.
Screenshots of third-party hotel booking websites pestering users with tipping requests prior to checking out have surfaced across the Internet, and travellers across the world are incensed, to say the least.
Adding on gratuity in hotels is nothing new — porters, housekeepers and other particularly helpful staff members — but this latest tipping transgression, discussed at length in an r/EndTipping thread, has sent travellers over the edge.
Sites like this one, which the majority of users under the post have identified as Super.com, suppose that their top-notch deals warrant a sliver of direct support from the customer — never mind that these sites likely make commission off of their bookings, as many seasoned travellers in the thread suggested.
'Ran into the same thing today! I noped right out before the site could do the full charge. Paid more out of principle,' said a very virtuous traveller.
'Do you want to donate money to our company because it performed the service it purports to provide?' read one sarcastic comment.
Another user ranted: 'Nope — [tipping] needs to be regulated [with] legislation… this is organized crime.'
Some of the replies were raging due to a general dislike for tipping culture.
Meanwhile, others were put off by the fact that typically, a tip goes to a real, flesh-and-blood human being who actually assisted in one way or another, rather than a digital entity.
Others were simply unbothered, and suggested users take advantage of the 'Complete booking without tip' button.
'Why not just hit 'no', and move on with your life?' reasoned one Redditor.
In recent years, some hotel chains have caught flak for increasing tipping opportunities by placing convenient QR codes in rooms, at the front desk and even on the back of key cards.
While guests and travellers largely recognize that tipping IRL employees actually benefits them — unlike the 'ridiculous' hotel booking site 'scams,' as one angry Redditor dubbed them — some also say that the burden of supporting service staff should fall on the employer, rather than the customer.
'Do not enable another industry to get away with paying horrible wages and expect their hard-working employees to earn a dignified wage through optional tips… do not support employment abuse,' wrote one irate hotelgoer under the post sharing news of the update.
In recent years, Americans have simply grown weary of leaving tips for every single transaction, and surveys show that in restaurants, they're slowly tipping less and less.