Are crew getting your automatic tips on P & O ships?

[balf]

What used to be a discretional gratuity is now a discretional service charge. To the punter nothing has changed. He/she can remove it whatever they call it. But there is a difference in that gratuities really are in the customers gift whereas, in many outlets a service charge isn't.

 

I am perfectly happy to leave the arraignments between staff and cruise line to them, but I object to the unfairness of the present system to both customer and staff, where not everyone pays.

 

The solution is now simple. Make the service charge non discretional.

 

Job done.

 

David.

[bee-ess]

The solution is now simple. Make the service charge non discretional.

 

 

I agree and if you are doing that it may as well be on the cost of the cruise, all paid upfront.

[heathcharnock]

P&O tell you what they will automatically add to your account for a Service Charge, not a tip.

 

A Service Charge is an amount that is charged for the standard service.

 

A tip is an amount that is offered on receipt of service that was above expectation.

 

P&O simply say that all of the Service Charge goes to the staff, which of course it would if it pays their wages.

 

Many employers operate pay systems that reward employees for performance. Few companies make public the details of the scheme to outsiders, and P&O is no different.

 

From P&O's simple statement there is no link between the amount you pay and the people that serve you. In respect of freedom dining and the buffet how could there be.

 

Therefore it is logical that at least part, if not all, of the Service Charge ends up in a single pot with everyone else's Service Charge to be divided up according to the remuneration scheme.

 

It is not logical this is done on a cruise by cruise basis (what do you do with cruises that span a pay period, etc) and is it even logical to do it on a ship by ship basis.

 

At the end of the day, the link between what anyone pays as a Service Charge and what the staff receives is virtually non existent.

 

Far more important will be what the passenger reports on their feedback questionnaire, as that will be linked to the reward system.

 

And on that point, isn't P&O stuck in the 1970's giving out one feedback questionnaire per cabin, with the expectation that all occupants of the cabin have a single view (or at least told they have).

 

This really is very simple. If you persist in imagining that there is a massive conspiracy, or you are unhappy with the information given by P&O you have two options

1) Remove the charge and do as you wish

2) Cruise with some other company

 

I. for one am bored by all the useless conjecture, which keeps being produced without a shred of concrete evidence. The bottom line is I don't care what you imagine might or might not be happening. I am happy with things as they are, I don't need a forensic examination of the relationship between P&O and their staff. If you are unhappy with the status quo then choose one of the options above but for goodness sake further pontification is a waste of time.

[davecttr]

What used to be a discretional gratuity is now a discretional service charge. To the punter nothing has changed. He/she can remove it whatever they call it. But there is a difference in that gratuities really are in the customers gift whereas, in many outlets a service charge isn't.

 

I am perfectly happy to leave the arraignments between staff and cruise line to them, but I object to the unfairness of the present system to both customer and staff, where not everyone pays.

 

The solution is now simple. Make the service charge non discretional.

 

Job done.

 

David.

 

Apparently Costa already do this and being a Carnival company means there is plenty of data available on how this works etc etc. Of course itemising the amount means people will moan about it so my preferred solution is to have it rolled into the headline price and not itemised.

 

NCL have an interesting system where you can opt out of the gratuity but not when you are aboard the ship. You have to apply after the holiday and probably fill in forms etc etc. I imagine that a lot of people who moan aboard don't actually jump through the hoops later ;)

 

On MSC you can remove the 'tips' but only if you have received unsatisfactory service. How do you prove this?

 

pa - I was on a Ventura 12 night cruise and we were on the penultimate day. A well spoken man who had the same cabin steward as me mentioned they had removed the auto gratuity but when the gave the steward the tip he did not look happy. The tip was 10 euros, for 12 days for 2 of them :eek:

 

as the cabin was kept spotless I thought if I was that steward I would have lost my job as I would have given the 10 euro note back to him, sticking it where the sun don't shine :eek:

 

that is why 'tips' should be rolled into the price of the cruise or made compulsory, to stop passengers stiffing the crew and getting other passengers to pay for part of their holiday :mad:

[Eddie99]

Exactly

[daiB]

Apparently Costa already do this and being a Carnival company means there is plenty of data available on how this works etc etc. Of course itemising the amount means people will moan about it so my preferred solution is to have it rolled into the headline price and not itemised.

 

 

 

NCL have an interesting system where you can opt out of the gratuity but not when you are aboard the ship. You have to apply after the holiday and probably fill in forms etc etc. I imagine that a lot of people who moan aboard don't actually jump through the hoops later ;)

 

 

 

On MSC you can remove the 'tips' but only if you have received unsatisfactory service. How do you prove this?

 

 

 

pa - I was on a Ventura 12 night cruise and we were on the penultimate day. A well spoken man who had the same cabin steward as me mentioned they had removed the auto gratuity but when the gave the steward the tip he did not look happy. The tip was 10 euros, for 12 days for 2 of them :eek:

 

 

 

as the cabin was kept spotless I thought if I was that steward I would have lost my job as I would have given the 10 euro note back to him, sticking it where the sun don't shine :eek:

 

 

 

that is why 'tips' should be rolled into the price of the cruise or made compulsory, to stop passengers stiffing the crew and getting other passengers to pay for part of their holiday :mad:

 

 

And you know Dave I am 100% with you on this one.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

[CRUISIN LINDA]

Just include the tips in the price of the cruise as Thomson do - simples :rolleyes:

 

I think the practice of adding them afterwards just smacks of trying to make the cruise look cheaper than it is!

Edited June 6, 2016 by CRUISIN LINDA

[insanemagnet]

I. for one am bored by all the useless conjecture, which keeps being produced without a shred of concrete evidence.

 

You carry on believing whatever you want to believe, it doesn't bother me.

 

You only have to consider the 35% increase in the Service Charge to know where is going on.

 

as the cabin was kept spotless

 

Do you not expect a hotel room to be kept clean?

 

If you checked in at a hotel would you expect to pay an additional charge or your room is not cleaned, or if it is cleaned and the discretionary charge not paid the member of staff is not paid.

 

Isn't that absolutely abhorrent behaviour by any hotel owner and employer.

 

Shouldn't P&O at least try to be a respectable employer by fairly paying its staff for work done.

 

The problem is that the cruise companies have historically relied on passengers paying tips, but they are now advertising to new customers who have not got into the old habits.

 

In reaction the cruise companies introduce a discretionary Service Charge because they don't want to increase the headline price, but then the bean counters decide to see how far they can increase it to subsidise the wage bill (the 35% increase).

 

Rather than blame the customer, blame P&O for being a shabby employer.

Edited June 6, 2016 by insanemagnet

[heathcharnock]

You only have to consider the 35% increase in the Service Charge to know where is going on.

 

but then the bean counters decide to see how far they can increase it to subsidise the wage bill (the 35% increase).

 

And your evidence of the validity of these statements is where ?

 

 

Shouldn't P&O at least try to be a respectable employer by fairly paying its staff for work done.

 

Rather than blame the customer, blame P&O for being a shabby employer.

 

Again where is the evidence that P&O pay less than their competitors. Again all just imagination and conjecture

 

 

Again all just imagination and conjecture

Edited June 6, 2016 by heathcharnock

[insanemagnet]

Again all just imagination and conjecture

Ooh, in colour.

 

So do you not believe the Service Charge in P&O has risen 35% in two years?

 

Do you honestly believe that the staff have seen the full benefit of that 35% increase? i.e. if they were being paid £x plus a share of the Service Charge, that they are still being paid the same amount of £x but with now a share of the 35% higher Service Charge?

 

If so, dream on (in colour).

Edited June 6, 2016 by insanemagnet

[davecttr]

Ooh, in colour.

 

So do you not believe the Service Charge in P&O has risen 35% in two years?

 

Do you honestly believe that the staff have seen the full benefit of that 35% increase? i.e. if they were being paid £x plus a share of the Service Charge, that they are still being paid the same amount of £x but with now a share of the 35% higher Service Charge?

 

If so, dream on (in colour).

 

the 35% increase is probably to cover for the increasing number of passengers removing the auto tips. Extrapolate this forward and the auto gratuity will soon be over £1000 per day ;)

[the english lady]

Ooh, in colour.

 

So do you not believe the Service Charge in P&O has risen 35% in two years?

 

Do you honestly believe that the staff have seen the full benefit of that 35% increase? i.e. if they were being paid £x plus a share of the Service Charge, that they are still being paid the same amount of £x but with now a share of the 35% higher Service Charge?

 

If so, dream on (in colour).

 

If you do not like the way pando operates..which you obviously don't . Why not just travel on the American lines. You can pay twice as much in daily tips and still rising and complain on their threads about it.

Some of us factor in the auto tips when we are pricing a cruise up.not too difficult.

Come up with whatever theory you like , but please we know your point of view now so you do not have to keep on repeating it and repeating it forever.

[Josy1953]

If you do not like the way pando operates..which you obviously don't . Why not just travel on the American lines. You can pay twice as much in daily tips and still rising and complain on their threads about it.

Some of us factor in the auto tips when we are pricing a cruise up.not too difficult.

Come up with whatever theory you like , but please we know your point of view now so you do not have to keep on repeating it and repeating it forever.

 

Well said. We also factor in the service charge when comparing cruises. I do think however that it is time that ALL cruise lines included tips in their cruise price because I feel that th charge is going up because there are so many people refusing to pay.

[GLYNAGP]

I get to the point where say to myself "I'm not going to get involved in this" then I can't help myself.

 

It's quite simple.

 

It's the same with everything, if you are really not happy with the way something is priced, marketed or whatever, don't moan constantly about it, just don't buy it. Find an alternative that you are happy with and buy that.

 

We have 20 plus cruises under our belt with various cruise lines and our first P and O cruise is in August. In fact we have 2 P & O cruises booked in August a 7 night and 2 night. I come onto these sites to get information that may be of help and all I seem to read is P and O passengers not happy with something or the other, I'm beginning to wonder if I've made a mistake booking P and O is everyone on board going to be moaning about the service charge.

 

If you don't want to pay Gratuties book Thomson, it's all included in the price. We've been once with Thomson previously and have another booked for October they really are quite good value for money.

 

The only thing I wish P and O would allow us to do is pay the service charges with the final cruise balance then I really wouldn't have to think of it again.

[davecttr]

I get to the point where say to myself "I'm not going to get involved in this" then I can't help myself.

 

It's quite simple.

 

It's the same with everything, if you are really not happy with the way something is priced, marketed or whatever, don't moan constantly about it, just don't buy it. Find an alternative that you are happy with and buy that.

 

We have 20 plus cruises under our belt with various cruise lines and our first P and O cruise is in August. In fact we have 2 P & O cruises booked in August a 7 night and 2 night. I come onto these sites to get information that may be of help and all I seem to read is P and O passengers not happy with something or the other, I'm beginning to wonder if I've made a mistake booking P and O is everyone on board going to be moaning about the service charge.

 

If you don't want to pay Gratuties book Thomson, it's all included in the price. We've been once with Thomson previously and have another booked for October they really are quite good value for money.

 

The only thing I wish P and O would allow us to do is pay the service charges with the final cruise balance then I really wouldn't have to think of it again.

 

Pre paid gratuities, I am dong that with NCL, got a free drinks package as well plus scheduled flights with BA and a pre cruise hotel :)

[GLYNAGP]

Pre paid gratuities, I am dong that with NCL, got a free drinks package as well plus scheduled flights with BA and a pre cruise hotel :)

I'm with you on that one . We've got NCL booked Xmas and New Year 2016 B2B from Barcelona prepaid grats, Free Drinks package and free wifi and Xmas And New Year 2017 booked NCL as well from Barcelona, prepaid grats and free drinks package (no wifi this time) .

 

Despite my previous comment I'm sure we will enjoy Ventura in August, we wanted to take our 8 years old grandson on Holiday , we initially looked at Butlins Bognor Regis , thinking that would be just up an 8 year olds street . I won't tell you the price but for a a few hundred pounds more (and not many hundreds) we have booked on Ventura for a week. As they say "it really was a no brainer"

Edited June 7, 2016 by glynandkath

[balf]

I wish posters would stop moaning about other posters moaning. This is the place to do it and while nearly all would like the service charge to be added to the cruise price maybe we can do just a little to make P&O aware of this.

 

And of course if you are fed up with the points raised here it's not compulsory to read them. You could always try another thread. There are plenty to choose from.

 

David

[insanemagnet]

If you do not like the way pando operates..which you obviously don't .

 

What on earth makes you think I don't like the way P&O operates?

 

I like P&O, but I am just amused at how deluded some of their customers are.

[Derbyshire dolly]

We don't have money to burn, as someone put it, but we did pay the automatic gratuities for our cruise last month, plus we gave our cabin stewardess £30. She works damn hard and she deserved it, I wouldn't want her job. Seven days a week with two hours off a day? As for the thought it must be ok to work for cruise lines or they wouldn't keep doing it, she's Filipina and she said there is no work for women (and precious little for men) in her country.

[balf]

From what I've seen and read P&O staff get far better treatment than in the Sports Direct warehouse.

 

David

[davenew]

From what I've seen and read P&O staff get far better treatment than in the Sports Direct warehouse.

 

David

 

Different contracts :D

[davenew]

P&O have produced a really full explanation of the tipping system. They tell you how much the recommended tip is, they add it to your account, they pay it to the stated staff. How much more information do you need?

 

There isn't any doubt about what the system is. The only doubt is that a number of people appear to believe that P&O run a systematic conspiracy to defraud thousands of staff, with dozens if not hundreds of conspirators running the fraud, and at the same time committing a very serious (punishable by jail) breach of fiduciary trust.

 

OK, on other lines I have always paid the preloaded tips, plus given extra in the envelopes - with no issues whatsoever.

On our first cruise with P&O last year, we got the soap box speech from the room steward about how they do not get the rewards that have been put aside for them, and that we would be better removing the prepaid gratuities and distributing them to whoever we wanted.

I wasn't sure if this was a direct ploy by the steward to ensure he got a good tip or that he was telling the truth about P&O not handing tips over.

Its like everybody on board is involved in some heavy sales patter.

We ended up keeping the prepaids and giving more to those we felt deserved it. It will be interesting to see how the stewards "sell it" this year on Britannia.

[VirginCruiser II]

I don't think they do too badly at all to be honest. I've cruised on many ships and stopped at many ports and, when going ashore, it's always the same thing.. the crew push through ahead of you in there designer trainers with their iPhones and ipads at the ready! Even with the money they send home to their families they seem quite well off.

[Jezzer7190]

I would like to know that too - as I said, an exposé across the industry would be very interesting. For me though it's not the amount I'm querying but the principle of whether it finds its way to those I, perhaps naively, assumed benefited from my auto grats. We do tip personally as well just to be sure those who serve us directly get something from us.......... though whether they have to declare it, relinquish it.... who knows? But that's what I'd like to know.

 

I agree it's not the amount but the principle of whether it's reaching the people it's intended for. Throwing £s away "willy nilly" and not caring where it goes seems to indicate some people have more money than sense. I've asked two crew members face-to-face if they would be getting 100% of the money I was giving from my on-board account. Both answered that they would not unless virtually all of their questionnaires were marked as excellent. After telling me that they then approached me later very worried that I'd say something to reception and that they'd lose their jobs. A friend said their crew member was in tears when he asked them to mark him as excellent.

 

It is in print in their brochures that 100% of the gratuities go direct to the staff concerned, which was why I was so shocked to hear that they weren't. I've asked head waiters in the past and they say all gratuities reach those they're intended for too but I believe some head waiters are salaried and aren't in the gratuities scheme themselves.

 

I have been on a ship where the waiters mutinied about a pay agreement but didn't know the full details and it must have been around the time of the P & O anouncement. They all left the ship and stood on the dockside just before the first sitting dinner service. In the end they had to come back on board as the country's officials said they couldn't stay ashore as they'd be illegal immigrants.

 

I believe in justice for all peoples around the world regardless of where they come from. How would you feel if you donated to a charity in, say, India and it ended up a rich American person's pocket instead?

[insanemagnet]

It is in print in their brochures that 100% of the gratuities go direct to the staff concerned, which was why I was so shocked to hear that they weren't.

 

100% does go to the staff.

 

A week's service charge on Ventura is around £135,000 (if everyone pays). If the wage bill is higher than £135,000 then all the money has clearly gone to the staff.

 

However the devil is in the detail.

 

Do the staff receive a fixed salary and the whole of the £135,000 is used to fund bonuses on top?

 

or

 

Is the £135,000 used to pay some of the fixed salary, and only a proportion used to pay bonuses (10%, 90%, 1%)?

 

Are these bonuses paid irrespective of how many people pay the service charge (i.e. it is a fixed size bonus pool and it is P&O that lose out as they have to top up the fixed salary cost pot from the reduction in payers).

 

Or are the bonuses based on how much the service charge pot collected (i.e. the staff lose out if people don't pay).

 

The only people that know for sure will be P&O (and not the waiters or stewards) and they are not telling. I would say draw your on conclusion from their silence.