What would happen if I accidentally left behind a $50 bill in my hotel room?

Rules vary by hotel, but if I left a loose fifty bucks in a room when I stay in one, I wouldn't count on ever seeing it again.

The policy in hotels that I run is, if a housekeeper's 'tip' is over twenty bucks, she must tell us, and turn it in. We'll let her keep twenty bucks of it, and hang on to the rest in accordance with the usual lost and found procedure (thirty days). If the guest calls with a credible story (as in, he or she names close to the correct amount of money left behind) about how he left loose cash in the room, we send a check to the guest for the total amount we found, and we take the hit on the twenty bucks ourselves and let the housekeeper keep that part (we don't want to supply an incentive to dishonesty, or a disincentive to honesty). 



If it's in a wallet, there's no question: any indicator that it wasn't left for the housekeeper intentionally by the guest means that it all belongs to the guest. We handle it in accordance with our usual lost-and-found procedure. (With wallets and other things of obvious value, we don't wait for a call: we contact the guest.)

Back in the day, tipping the housekeeper was as to-be-expected as tipping a waitress. Large chains and franchise organizations have gotten away from it (you can still order tip envelops from a hotel supply house, but chains and franchise organizations forbid the use of them.)  Hotel owners went right along. Tips present a management challenge (disputes arise over how to divide them if more than one housekeeper services the room over several days, and any room attendant with any 'seniority' at all demands the 'right' to pick and choose what rooms she'll clean, and we'll get to some others . . .) 

What happens to restaurant/bar tips paid on card and how/when does the money get divided out between staff?

In a hotel, there's a line item on the night audit form (and any cash reports from restaurants or bars within the hotel that get fed into it), that is either deducted from the hotel's daily deposit (which will include all cash and credit card receipts for that day), or included among a list of cash paid-outs that is itself totaled up and deducted from the hotel's daily deposit; labeled "Charge Tips". It will be equal to the sum of all server tips charged to a customer's credit card.



This allows any tip amount due a server from a customer's check paid with a credit card to be paid, that day, from the cash drawer, without causing the daily deposits to come up short.

Originally appeared on Quora

Why don't hotels allow you to tip the maid on your final bill?

It’s not an altogether bad idea, although it has its bugs to work out. We should maybe try it in properties that will operate under our own brands.

I would guess that the biggest thing in the way of it at most hotels is that the select service/limited service hotel business model — with which most hotels line up nowadays, although some full-service hotels remain — was designed, in part, to eliminate tipped employees in hotels.

Getting us away from tipped employees was just one part of the overall campaign to simplify the hotel operation, make it possible to make most of the revenue on rooms rather than food, beverage on banquets, eliminate the high-overhead restaurant and bar and see if people could make do with a complimentary, easy-to-prepare buffet breakfast instead, and keep everything at a single, moderate if not altogether low, price for the guest.

One thing they definitely wanted to get away from was the number of employees in a hotel — the doorman, the bellman, the wait staff at the hotel restaurant, the washroom attendant, the guy in the fitness room — who always seemed to have their hand out to the guests.

That’s respectable. Tipped employees can be a little much in the sort of establishment where it’s a problem (although I’m older and wiser now, and don’t patronize “gentlemens’ clubs” any more).