Please don’t pay this surcharge at UK hotels

Whether we like it or not, Americans are often not the most popular of visitors in other countries, and when you ask why this is, we’re often described as brash, loud, and overly keen to offer up an opinion. That seems a little harsh.

Sure, some of our guys may be like that, but that’s a description of a stereotype rather than the norm, so tainting us all with the same brush seems unfair.

What’s less unfair, however, is another accusation that gets levelled at Americans more and more as each year passes – we’re exporting our ridiculous tipping culture to where it’s not wanted.

What some of our fellow Americans don’t seem to be able to get into their heads is that just because we live in a country where we allow jobs in certain sectors to be so badly paid that the rest of us are guilted into subsidising those wages through tipping, most other countries aren’t like that.

In a lot of other countries, people working in restaurants and the hospitality industry, for example, are paid properly, so tipping is unnecessary, and because it’s unnecessary, it’s often not welcomed by the local population.

Why? Because the more people tip, the more it becomes expected, and the more it becomes expected, the more people feel the need to pay it and that can help push up the cost of living for everyone.

Europe is one area of the world where the American tipping culture is really becoming an issue and the UK, in particular, is a problem zone.

The UK has legislation in place to ensure that most workers in the hospitality industry get paid a wage that doesn’t leave them relying on tips just to put food on their plates.

That’s why, as a general rule, you don’t tip in bars/pubs (unless you get table service), you don’t tip housekeeping, and you don’t tip every time you overpay for a coffee.

Yes, in restaurants you’ll usually be presented with a check which has a “service charge” of between 10% and 15% added to it, but this is optional and you can ask to have it removed if your service was sub-standard.

What you never do is add a tip on top of a check with a service charge already on it.

Recently, however, we’ve started to see some unwelcome changes in the UK, but so far, they seem to be confined (mostly) to London.

After ordering a couple of beers at a London pub a month or so ago, I was presented with a card reader which, for the first time in my pub-going life, asked me if I wanted to add a tip. A couple of weeks ago, the same thing happened again, this time at a different pub.

That’s relatively new. And that’s there for the Americans in town.

No British person is tipping after ordering a pint at the bar, and no European is tipping either, but the request for a tip is now out there and you can be sure it will spread like wildfire once our tip-happy brethren cross the pond and don’t think twice about adding 20+%.

Don’t do it! It’s not expected!

Another relatively new thing that has appeared in the UK is a “discretionary service charge” that’s being added to a few hotel bills, and this is where I finally get to the main point of this article.

I’m not sure when this started (it can’t be more than a couple of years old), but a number of UK hotels (mostly, it appears, in London) are now adding 5% to the bill at checkout regardless of what services have been provided or how good or bad your stay may have been.

At the time of writing, I can only find evidence of Hyatt properties admitting that they will add this charge to a guest’s folio at checkout …

… but anecdotal evidence tells me that this is happening elsewhere as well, so this is almost certainly not just a “Hyatt thing”. Hyatt just seems to be good at highlighting it.

In London, for example, the websites of the following Hyatt properties show that they will add a 5% “discretionary service charge” to your bill:

• The Hyatt Regency London – The Churchill (review)
• The Hyatt Regency London Blackfriars (review)
• The Hyatt Regency London Albert Embankment (review)
• The Hyatt Regency London Olympia (opening May 2026)
• The Great Scotland Yard Hotel (review)
• The Hyatt Place London City East
• The Park Hyatt London River Thames (room review & suite review)
• The Andaz Liverpool Street

Notably, the Standard, the Hyatt Regency London Stratford, the Hyatt House London Stratford, the Hyatt Place London Heathrow, and all the other Hyatt properties in the UK, make no mention this charge on their websites (at the time of writing) and so, presumably, do not charge it.

Well done to them.

Please do not pay this charge. Ask for it to be removed from your bill before you check-out. I do it all the time and it takes less than 30 seconds and there’s never any push back.

In fact, there’s often a slightly guilty look from the desk agent as this is not a British thing. This is an unwanted US import.

Hotel prices in London and in some other parts of UK are out of control as it is, so the last thing the city or the country needs is for Americans (or anyone else for that matter) to normalise these kinds of charges and make hotel stays even more expensive than they already are.

These charges are unnecessary from a staff welfare point of view, and this is how the ridiculous tipping “culture” we have in the US gets started elsewhere.

First, they guilt people into paying a little extra by suggesting a “discretionary” gratuity.

Next, they start including whatever element of that gratuity that filters down to staff into something they’ll call a staff member’s “overall package”.

They then normalize the “discretionary” gratuity and get guests and the staff used to paying and receiving it.

And finally, they start to increase the discretionary gratuity without increasing the wages they’re paying their staff, and they tell their staff that that their “overall package” is still going up.

Please, let’s not inflict this on another country.

It’s bad enough that in the US we’re expected to tip anyone that so much at looks at us when we buy a coffee, buy a beer, park our car, eat out, or stay at a hotel regardless of how good, bad, or truly dreadful our experience has been, so let’s not spread this plague any further than it has already spread.

Please, learn what the tipping culture is in wherever it is that you’re visiting and then stick to it. You’re a visitor in another person’s county, so respect how they do things and let’s not force our disfunctional culture on them.