Hotel & Dining Charge

[Tigrou]

Could anyone tell me what happens if a passenger chooses to remove (or reduce) the hotel and dining charge from their account.  Does it mean any of the staff get less money?

 

The reason I ask is that I'm just back from a SOU-NYC-SOU trip where I was seated at a table of 6 solo travellers,  the other 5 of whom were at least 25 years older than me.  (I did wonder if someone  had read my date of birth incorrectly!)  Personally I think our wait staff had the patience of saints given the regular complaints about the slowness of service (with no apparent understanding of the logistics involved), about items not being delivered (which had not in fact been ordered) or wrong items being delivered (which were actually what had been ordered).  To use a phrase from my fellow traveller's era rather than my own, dinner times were often like a Brian Rix farce.  

 

At dinner on the last night, the first topic of conversation was how some of them had been to the Purser's Desk to have the hotel and dining charges either removed or reduced.  Even under normal circumstances I would have been dismayed, but after seeing what the wait staff had put up with over the past 14 nights I couldn't believe it.  One individual did hand over a single, unmarked envelope to the junior waiter only.  Another handed over a few US banknotes, again only to one waiter.  One may have handed over a single envelope, another definitely didn't give anything to either waiter (and is one who had spoken about having reduced the charge).  The 5th individual only briefly called by the table to say goodbye to us, and didn't even bother speaking to the waiters.

 

Of course I have no idea what was in the envelopes or how much the banknotes were worth, or what each person did or did not pay through their onboard account.  But it got me thinking about what happens if people remove the charge, which Cunard clearly states is for all hotel and dining staff, those you see and those you do not.  For any of my tablemates who had it removed or reduced, even if they did then 'tip' the waiters a decent amount, they have effectively chosen to ignore all the other 'behind the scenes' staff.

 

Is it the case that any staff will have effectively have been short paid for those 2 weeks?

 

[Underwatr]

Ooh, a can-of-worms topic. 🙂

 

My understanding from years of gleaning threads on Cruise Critic is as follows:

 

It's likely that a reduction in daily service charges will impact what the crew receives. They are under a contract which pays them a very small wage with the understanding that a significant portion of their income will be from service charges. There is apparently a guarantee that their wage plus tips will not fall below some minimum level, at which point the line will provide additional wages to meet the minimum. I assume that the actual income of crew members is comfortably above this minimum, so any reduction from passengers' daily charges results in a reduction in their share of the apportioned tips. 

 

Whether cash received in lieu of daily service charges is that person's money to keep or must be turned over to the "pool" is under some debate here.

 

I assume that people who reduce or eliminate the daily service charge (a) miss many employees who are in the tipping pool and (b) often make a smaller outlay than the daily service charge for both passengers in a stateroom would provide.

[Bell Boy]

1 hour ago, Underwatr said:

Ooh, a can-of-worms topic. 🙂

 

My understanding from years of gleaning threads on Cruise Critic is as follows:

 

It's likely that a reduction in daily service charges will impact what the crew receives. They are under a contract which pays them a very small wage with the understanding that a significant portion of their income will be from service charges. There is apparently a guarantee that their wage plus tips will not fall below some minimum level, at which point the line will provide additional wages to meet the minimum. I assume that the actual income of crew members is comfortably above this minimum, so any reduction from passengers' daily charges results in a reduction in their share of the apportioned tips. 

 

Whether cash received in lieu of daily service charges is that person's money to keep or must be turned over to the "pool" is under some debate here.

 

I assume that people who reduce or eliminate the daily service charge (a) miss many employees who are in the tipping pool and (b) often make a smaller outlay than the daily service charge for both passengers in a stateroom would provide.

Just to clarify here, I can confirm,  there is NO pool on Cunard Line when a waiter receives cash in lieu of the daily service charge. However, there is a 'friendly system' whereby a waiter or a room attendant offers a portion to his/her assistant  ( should their assistant not receive anything in addition)   

If that make sense. 😉

 

( other cruise lines may have a different system)  

Edited May 13, 2019 by Bell Boy

[Pennbank]

In effect Remove The Charge, Pay in Cash to the staff and its a win for some staff but not for shareholders. 

Edited May 13, 2019 by Pennbank

[navybankerteacher]

2 hours ago, Pennbank said:

In effect Remove The Charge, Pay in Cash to the staff and its a win for some staff but not for shareholders. 

 How does removing the service charge for behind-the-scenes staff impact the shareholders?  Are you saying that if the staff receives service charge allocation the line will reduce compensation?

[Pennbank]

Because the Company will make up the shortfall in line to the minimum agreed with the workers contract.   More people pay gratuities, less money company have to pay into make up the shortfall.

Less profit made less shareholders benefit !

Edited May 13, 2019 by Pennbank

[PORT ROYAL]

40 minutes ago, Pennbank said:

Because the Company will make up the shortfall in line to the minimum agreed with the workers contract.   More people pay gratuities, less money company have to pay into make up the shortfall.

Less profit made less shareholders benefit !

 

One stands to be corrected, but have been told that the Cunard bean counters have already factored into the Cruise Price that "everyone" will not pay, the daily charge, and "everyone" uses a FCD.

Those who pay the daily charge and those who do not use a FCD add to the bottom line profits.

To not add in these factors with a stable figure will give forward budgeting exposure to too many fluctuations in financial variables, and make budgetary forecasting an accounting nightmare.  So stability in costings is therefore the byword.

 

It's up to the individual what they pay the daily charge or not

Edited May 13, 2019 by PORT ROYAL
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[Pennbank]

Agree completely that its up to the individual, who pays or not. That has never been mentioned, until you mentioning it.

However Profit is made up of Spending and saving. So if a company has to spend it does not save, so in my eyes that is less profit. Less profit for a company means less payout.

[Underwatr]

1 hour ago, Pennbank said:

Because the Company will make up the shortfall in line to the minimum agreed with the workers contract.   More people pay gratuities, less money company have to pay into make up the shortfall.

Less profit made less shareholders benefit !

I don't believe the workers are so close to their guaranteed minimums that the company guarantee kicks in due to the random passenger deciding he has a better idea. Rather, by taking matters into their own hands, those passengers are reducing the pay of the employees below what they would be otherwise.

 

I won't go down the path to discuss whether tipping should be abolished, but will note that for several years I've booked fares with Cunard that have included prepayment of the daily service charge.

[Tigrou]

So it would appear that, as I feared, the actions of my tablemates did have an adverse effect on staff pay.  Even if what some of them gave the wait staff made up for the removal of the charge from their accounts, they gave nothing to the 'behind the scenes' staff.  Those who gave nothing through either method, docked the pay of all staff involved.

 

It is somewhat reassuring that there is a guaranteed minimum which staff will receive.  However, I still believe it grossly unfair that they can effectively have pay docked because someone who can afford to travel (and these individuals were all very frequent cruisers) decides to save a few dollars for their next trip rather than pay even the basic amount to staff working long hours, away from home.

 

Whilst I agree that it should be up to an individual to choose whether or not to tip for service they view as 'above and beyond', I do not agree that they should be able to opt out of the hotel and dining charge if that results in staff not being paid a reasonable wage. 

 

Cunard's policy states, "To ensure crew in these areas are rewarded for the service they provide to you, and to eliminate the need for tipping, a hotel and dining service charge is added to your on board account and every dollar collected goes directly to the crew members.  There is no administrative fee.  Of course, should you wish to individually reward any other crew member who has made your time on board particularly memorable, please feel free to do so".

 

I understood this as being a step in the right direction, as it says it is to ensure staff are paid for the service provided.  I would prefer it be incorporated into the fare but otherwise view it as a non-optionable addition, such as the various taxes added to hotel room rates in the US.  The policy does not state that you can opt out of this payment, and I am disappointed that Cunard allow this to happen.   

 

 

[Wiltonian]

Of course, P&O, Cunard's sister line in the Carnival fleet, have abolished "pseudo-compulsory" gratuities entirely. In various discussions and reports on the P&O board, it became pretty clear that those gratuities had no impact on staff income at all; they just boosted Carnival's bottom line. I'm not saying that Cunard works in the same way, but I think the consensus is that one should assess critically anecdotal conversations with crew members about what actually happens with those gratuities.

 

Stuart

Edited May 14, 2019 by Wiltonian
mistryyping

[Solent Richard]

4 hours ago, Wiltonian said:

Of course, P&O, Cunard's sister line in the Carnival fleet, have abolished "pseudo-compulsory" gratuities entirely. In various discussions and reports on the P&O board, it became pretty clear that those gratuities had no impact on staff income at all; they just boosted Carnival's bottom line. I'm not saying that Cunard works in the same way, but I think the consensus is that one should assess critically anecdotal conversations with crew members about what actually happens with those gratuities.

 

Stuart

 

You are correct. I have a booking on Arcadia for later this year that I made before P&O made their announcement scrapping gratuities.

 

In a way I'm a happy bear because the cost of my Balcony has now risen considerably and I'm thrilled to think that those who automatically head for reception to remove gratuities will, in the future, be paying their share.

 

Meanwhile us Carnival shareholders will continue to draw the benefits.

[longton]

I would rather Cunard removes gratuities and increase prices. At least that way everyone pays the same.

[Solent Richard]

On the subject of gratuities I can no longer  find that thread concerning the Australian guy who was charged pre-cruise on his credit card.

 

I made the point of asking a number of Australian Cunard contributors on one of the facebook groups and everyone stated that they had never experienced such a policy.

[Host Hattie]

The thread was deleted at the request of the poster as he had made a mistake.