Tipping in Thailand

Tipping didn’t use to be a big thing in Phuket. I remember six or so years ago when I first came here that Thai people would often call you back to the table when you left some money because they thought that you had forgotten to pick it up. When you explained that it was a “tip”, most were very grateful and some said that you didn’t need to leave it—it just wasn’t necessary.

Times have changed, some things for the better and some for the worse. One obnoxious trend is the attitude toward tipping here. Tipping has never made much sense in terms of encouraging good service, but at least it has that as an idea behind it.

Well, waiters have figured out that there are ways other than good service to boost their tip. The most annoying method that I have come across here is the “make change with a million tiny coins” trick. The idea is simple: make change with only 1 Baht coins. Most guests will simply see a big pile of tiny coins and leave them all because they don’t want to carry around such a huge pile of metal in their pocket. The waiter gets a big tip that they take back to the registrar and convert into bills that they can easily carry. Even better, they can’t really be called on it because they did give “correct” change and they can always pretend that they just didn’t have bigger coins or bills available in the cash drawer.

The last time this happened to me was at an otherwise very fine restaurant where 10% service was already included in the bill. So, on top of the semi-manditory gratuity, the waiters were looking to scam me out of a little bit more. I have only one response when this happens to me: I take the bill tray and tip it all into my pocket. I don’t like a bunch of loose change any more than the next man, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to tip staff who can’t even make proper change.