I recently stayed at a hotel in Manchester, UK, for work, and it was one I'd been looking forward to staying at. It was beautiful, a little different, had a great atmosphere and a real focus on wellbeing. Basically, exactly the kind of hotel I'm always curious to experience for myself.
Working in hospitality probably doesn't help. I notice the check-in, the room, the tech and all the little details that shape the experience. And there was a lot about this hotel that I really liked.
Would I have known if I hadn't asked?
The check-in started like any other. During the process, I was told they'd put a £50 hold on my card. Nothing unusual there, but I like transparency and clarity when it comes to money, so I asked what the hold was for and how it worked. During that conversation, I was also told that a 15% tip would automatically be taken from the hold at checkout.
That caught me off guard a bit. I asked whether the tip was optional and was told that it was and could be removed. I'd never experienced that kind of charge at a hotel before and I'm more than happy to tip for great service, but that was exactly what didn't sit right with me. If the 15% was optional, why was it being automatically taken rather than giving me the choice to add it?
My trust in the hotel really started to shift when I mentioned the 15% to my colleagues who were staying there too. None of them knew anything about it, which surprised me because I'd assumed they'd been told at check-in. That's when I realised that if I hadn't asked those questions about the hold, I probably wouldn't have known about it either.
When my colleagues later checked out, the charge still wasn't mentioned. There was no mention of the 15% and no conversation about whether they wanted to leave a tip or not.
And the reality is, people are busy. When you're checking out of a hotel, you're thinking about getting to your next meeting, catching a train or flight, or the emails already waiting for you. You're not necessarily standing at reception studying every charge. My colleagues knew about the 15% because I'd told them, but unless they actively asked for it to be removed, they were charged.
It also made me wonder how easily someone could end up tipping twice without realising. If you don't know a tip is going to be added at checkout, you could quite easily tip a member of the team who really stood out during your stay, only to have another tip added to your bill later.
That's what disappointed me most. I was told the tip was optional, but unless you knew it was there, how were you supposed to make that choice?
Is that really transparency?
Maybe the charge was mentioned somewhere in the booking process. We were travelling for work and the rooms had been booked through a corporate account, so it's entirely possible there was information none of us had seen.
But I think that raises an interesting question in itself. If the person actually staying at the hotel doesn't know they're going to be charged something, has it been communicated clearly enough?
For me, transparency isn't just about whether the information exists somewhere in the booking journey. It's about whether the guest actually knows what they're going to be charged.
And when that charge is optional, I think it's even simpler: the guest should know about it before they're charged and understand that they have a choice.
The real cost was trust
What stayed with me was how quickly one relatively small interaction changed the way I felt about the hotel. Up until then, I'd been excited about the stay, but suddenly I found myself questioning things I probably wouldn't normally have thought twice about. What else might be added to my bill? What exactly was included? Was there anything else I didn't know about?
And that's when I realised the tip wasn't really the issue anymore. It was the trust I'd lost along the way.
The conversation at check-in didn't help either. When I had asked my questions about the tip, the response felt defensive, and I came away feeling uncomfortable for asking. I simply wanted to understand what I was going to be charged and why. Guests should be able to ask those questions without feeling awkward, particularly when it comes to something they've been told is optional.
It also made me wonder whether the conversation was uncomfortable for them too. Maybe they weren't used to being asked about the charge, particularly if it wasn't something they would normally explain at check-in. I don't know, but if that's the case, it feels like an awkward position to put the team in as well.
Hoteliers put so much thought into creating an experience guests want to come back to. The design, the service, the technology, the food and all those little details that shape a stay, and this hotel had clearly put a lot of thought into those things too.
But trust is part of that experience as well. Once you give a guest a reason to question one charge, you risk giving them a reason to question everything else.
Can a lack of transparency make a guest think twice?
Ultimately, I think that's the question I'd be asking as a hotelier. Has this experience changed how I feel about staying there again?
Absolutely. It would definitely make me think twice.
And that's a shame, because it was a genuinely cool, unique hotel and there was a lot I liked about it. Before this happened, it was somewhere I could easily have seen myself returning to. Now, I'd hesitate.
It wasn't the tip itself that changed that. It was how the whole thing was communicated and the lack of trust that followed. So much thought had gone into creating an experience guests would want to come back to, yet one relatively small part of that experience was enough to change how I felt about returning.
So I'm interested in what others think. If a tip is optional, should the guest choose to add it, or is it fair to add it automatically and let them remove it? If a charge is included somewhere in the booking information but the guest reaches checkout without knowing about it, has it really been communicated clearly enough? And when we're trying to make paying at a hotel as easy as possible, whose experience are we actually making easier?
I don't have a problem with tipping. I have a problem with not knowing what I'm being charged and why.
Because once a guest starts questioning the bill, they're not just questioning the charge. They're questioning their trust in you.
