Service Charge on Venue cost

Some hotels we've staying in have had a note when checking out that service charge is discretionary and any will be distributed amongst the staff, we've always put some money in an envelope and left it at reception when checking out (when service has been good that is)!

I've never seen or heard of such a thing, except in a restaurant. I'm in a job where I dont receive tips, no matter how hard I work, so find it difficult that companies have the hide to ask for more. I was never told about any tips/extras at any of the venues I went to, although I only had my wedding at 1.

I think its rude really. If AFTER the night you think the service was outstanding, I'd send chocolates or other token that could be shared. What amount would you give anyway? A percentage of the total cost? Divided by how many staff? £1 for each guest? I have no idea.

Our venue added 5 % onto the bill as a "discretionary service charge". This was added to the total which included hotel room bookings and such i.e. stuff you wouldn't pay a tip on, so we asked for it to be removed. This was no problem on the venue's part. I *do* think it rude that the assumption is still there (and with such explicit instructions on how to leave such a tip) and my inner child would be digging her heels in at leaving anything in this case

TBH I've never left a tip at a hotel unless I've stayed there for more than a few nights ?

I now feel under pressure to leave something which I can't physically afford and what would be a suitable amount? £10 per person who has worked that night? Could mean £200-300. if we worked on rule of thumb of leaving a 10% tip then I'd be looking at £700. Alot of money when you're on a tight budget.

I just wish I'd known about this before so that I could have budgeted it for it in the first place.

I think adding it in the first place is extremely rude when you haven't even received the service.

I agree with you. I'm a *** on things like this though and would have quite happily left a tip of some description "if" I had thought it was deserved. I now feel under pressure to leave the tip but I also think I am paying them for a service and at near on £80 per head it's a fcukin liberty to even mention it!!

In the bluntest of senses, waiting staff in this country MUST be paid minimum wage and none of this is allowed to be recouped via tips. Any gratuity you leave is just that, a token gesture of thanks for a decent effort on their part. I hate it when places do this.

You shouldnt feel pressured into paying ANYTHING extra. After the wedding, I'd write a nice thankyou letter to the manager. I'd also add in there, that had you been aware of them adding on tips, you would have budgeted for it, if the service deservied it. As you werent made aware beforehand, you were unable to leave any extra. £700 extra is ridiculous. Even £10 per person, but thats just me.

A thankyou letter/card and a box of chocolates is sufficient- if the service was great. If not, a letter with the good/bad faults & thats it.

Dont feel pressures at all. Its your money & are you planning on having many more weddings there anyway???

Tipping annoys me greatly. I will tip when I feel it is appropriate, when the person has gone above and beyond the expectations of their job.

I do not get tips for doing my job, I may get a bonus for achieving things above and beyond those expectations so why should I tip someone for simply doing their job? If they exceeded my expectations greatly then I might.

Like FTLOMB, my inner child would stamp my feet and say no now out of principle.

I work in a hotel. The majority of our staff are on minimum wage and many of them are under 21 or under 18 therefore are paid less than that. Our tips come through our wages and we're taxed on those too. Not that I'm grumbling, they're a reward for a job well done that's pretty much (though admittedly not entirely) unique to the hospitality industry - you wouldn't tip a shop assistant no matter how helpful they'd been would you? However... we would never ask for or assume we would receive any tips from anyone.

H and I went to a restaurant recently where the card machine asked him for a tip as he paid - H is normally a big tipper (will tip £5 for a £20 meal) but he refused to tip on principle. Actually, H being H has since refused to return and tells everyone he knows about it when he gets the chance - no second chances with my husband, how perfect must I be? ?

I just think people in restaurants and hotels generally are paid minimum wage yet a lot of the time are so helpful and polite and smiling I like to tip them - but only if we have received good service. In America they really have to work hard for their tips and that is why customer service is so great over there - if more people in the UK had t odepend on thier tips I think customer services would go through the roof! We could learn a lot from them!

On our contract it states that we have to pay a 5% tip which will work out at around £400. I'm not particularly pleased by it, but as it's on the contract I feel there is little we can do. I always think that tips should reflect a job well done, and if I'm somewhere that has given good service, I'll always leave a tip. But I don't think you should have to pay a tip!

Haha, mine is the opposite and LOVES it when card machines ask "would you like to leave a tip?"! He's a bit shy and I think he doesn't like leaving money because then everyone can see what you've left, and he's also paranoid that if he leaves it on the table someone else will nick it. (I'm aware how weird I'm making him sound... he isn't really, just one of his quirks!)

As for tipping... we didn't tip anybody involved in our wedding. There's almost always extra added on when you mention it's for a wedding anyway.

In my opinion, the cost of meals per head was so over inflated at our wedding because it was for a wedding (almost double what they charge for the same menu when eating in their restaurant!) that I would expect the staff they use for weddings to be superior & therefor paid more. Having a venue write a note pretty much telling you that you are expected to tip & this is how you will do it would definitely make me turn into a stroppy madam & feel less inclined to tip. I don't think I have ever tipped a hotel but I do tip waiting staff if they have looked after us well.

It amazes me that venues get away with charging so much more for a wedding meal than any other event (incidentally we don't where I work, maybe an extra 5% if there's a lot of extra bits and pieces involved like cake stand hire and us arranging flowers for tables and not even that usually)

We've had large dinner bookings for 30-40 people who've been a lot more bother than any wedding, and also bookings for under 10 which I could say the same for!

It's the same staff serving whatever the occassion and almost certainly on the same wage so really it's an excuse to make more profit!

Incidentally if you have to pay the tips as part of their account they'll have to go through the wages and they'll be taxed on them - if they see them at all.

I went to a restaurant last year with my boss and some others from work (her daughters - who also works with us - birthday night out) when the bill came she queried the gratuities that had been added. She wasn't refusing to pay it but wanted to know how much the staff got from it and the waiter said he'd get 10% of it, after tax. So that means that even on gratuities the restaurant was making a profit from the staff!! She got him to take it off the bill in the end and gave him the same amount in cash for himself and the rest of the service staff on duty that night.

For the record my venue is a private golf club which has a stunning club house which was built in the early 18th Century. I'm having for £75 per head

One welcome drink, 1/2 bottle of house wine per person, 3 course dinner with coffee and champagne toast.

welcome drink is Pimms (£3.50 per glass say) 1/2 bottle of house wine (£10?) 3 course dinner of smoked chicken salad, sausage and mash, cheesecake (£35 max in a standard restaurant) champagne toast (£5?) so I would say the cost per person would equate to £53.50 lets say £55.

That means I'm being charged an extra £20 per person for venue hire (hire for ceremony room was an extra £300ish) so £1500 say. Any extras such as chair covers, extra drink, evening buffet I have paid extra for.

£1500 for use of a venue is not unheard of at some wedding venues but when you think that what you pay for food and wine is inflated to cover the cost of the waiting staff anyway I am in agreement with most that I think it's rude to being asking me for a tip for a service I have yet to receive.

Nicnol is your venue used as a normal restaurant when there isn't a wedding on or does it sit unused unless there's a function on?

I only ask because we often turn away a lot of business to have a wedding as our function room is our main restaurant area and I could understand them trying to recoup some of the potential loss in revenue by charging a bit extra.

Saying that, there's usually less staff needed as there aren't loads of individual tables arriving at various times needing attention. There's just one sitting of a set number of people who will have pre-ordered so there's no risk of wastage etc etc and kitchen staff will generally get away earlier than on a normal night

Apologies if I haven't quite grasped your question but:

This suggests that the policy when you booked was that 5% would have been applied to your bill? If you were aware of that, did you budget for it? Because if so, surely the easy solution is that the venue budget is now 5% less and you can therefore leave that money aside for the tip?

(if you chose to tip, I'm not getting into that part of the debate!!)

@ caweena I think it only acts as a restaurant to the members on Sunday's. It does use the other rooms on a Saturday to weddings/private functions only. Obviously this is only from what I have seen when we have been there to visit so wouldn't know exactly but times we have visited on a Saturday either a wedding or a birthday party. Sunday's the rooms have been set up for Sunday lunch (we're getting married on Saturday)

@ Blonde Vicki.....well funny you should say that as I thought maybe I had missed something in the original paper work but couldn't see any mention of it. Possibly changed before I had booked. The email from the venue does say "just one point which I am unsure if I had mentioned"