Two-part restaurant billing.

[micky]

Any of you ever go out to dinner?

And charge the cost to a credit card?

And add a tip after they bring you the bill?

Sunday night I took 3 friends out to dinner and as usual I looked at the email from the cc company, and I remembered the amount and I had been billed the amount with no tip.

I checked my cc account for 2 days and no change. I called the restaurant which put me on hold playing terrible music for 11 minutes. It also had urged me to write them from the webpage.

So I had to go to the webpage and write them and they called back, twice even, and the first woman gave me to another woman who said that this was the system in the US for, I am told, all restaurants and tips, that the bill for the tip would come 3 or more days later.

Has that been your experience?

Do you think it's true of all restaurants wrt tips? What about other places where one tips?

[retired1]

This is pretty much standard with restaurants.

See

for some details

[Jim Joyce]

I find 3 things to be interesting.

1. That you didn't know how tipping on a CC works. I'd have thought you had experience with that by this stage in your life.

1. That you were concerned enough to call the restaurant. That boggles my mind.

2. That you wrote a letter to investigate further. Mind boggling to the next level.

Your life is very different from mine. :-)

[Retirednoguilt]

Never had that experience in any country. I live in the U.S. and have charged almost all my restaurant meals for decades. My most common experience is that I have one charge posted to my monthly account that is the sum of the bill and the tip. However, commonly, the e-mail alert from the bank (within a few minutes of having the bill prepared by restaurant) only specifies the amount of the bill pre-tip. I've never received a second e-mail alert for just the tip.

[retired1]

What dollar value have you selected for the alert to trigger on ? More than a normal tip ? Mine is set for $1.00

[Oscar]

I add the tip and pay by personal check.

[hubops]

LOL .. and you calculate the tip amount on your abacus ? or your slide rule ? John T.

[Jethro Bodine]

LOL  You can't calculate a tip in your head?

[Retirednoguilt]

I don't remember exactly, but I have it set to record whatever was the lowest amount the bank's on-line program allowed. However, it shouldn't matter because the official monthly statement only shows one charge from the restaurant, which is always the sum of the bill and my added-on tip. I'd expect that if the restaurant submitted two charges, one for the food and tax, and minutes later for my tip, they would appear as two separate transactions on two separate lines. In any case, I always save the card holder's copy of the charge receipt that I fill out exactly the same (adding the tip) as the merchant's copy that I leave on the table. When I get the monthly statement, I check to see that the amount charged isn't higher than what I signed for on the merchant's copy of the charge receipt. When I'm satisfied that there are no discrepancies, I shred the receipts.

[Retirednoguilt]

If you qualify for certain credit cards, you can receive a 3% bonus in "points" that you can redeem at any time. I always redeem for a credit to the account. It can really add up if you eat out a lot or have the good fortune to be able to eat frequently at $$$ and $$$$ priced places. It's really free money, especially because I've never been in a restaurant in the U.S. that imposes a surcharge for payment with a credit card (or a discount for paying in cash). Even if you claim your dining costs as a business expense for tax purposes, the credit card statement and card holder's receipt provides documentation if audited.

[micky]

Why do you use such a foolish signature?

Do you live in the USA? How have you not noticed that it's the RIGHT that's doing the censorship.

Change left to right in your signature, read it back to yourself, and maybe you will learn something.

WRT one example, Southerners, white southeners, even if their families lived in the south before the Civil War, even if they owned slaves, are not the same people as their ancestors and they are not responsible for slavery or Jim Crow.

UNTIL, they try to erase the memory or slavery and Jim Crow. Once they do that, the make themselves accessories to all the crimes of the slaveholders and racists. They cast shame on themselves before their own children and grandchildren, most of whom are not so stupid that they won't figure it out and be ashamed of their parents.