tipping

It's not the thing that it is in the US. Round up to the next euro for a taxi. 1€/bag for bell services. 10% for table service restaurants if the service was good and there wasn't a service charge.

That may or may not be accurate. Insofar as restaurants are concerned, I saw on this trip numerous Germans who don't tip, as well as paying in cash. Regardless, what I do depends on where I am in Germany and the particular establishment , server and all that.

As we were recently in Switzerland, France and the Netherlands, we found that almost all the credit card machines in restaurants now have a tip option that automatically comes up of 10, 15 and 20 percent.

Cjean is correct about table service tip in Germany, 10%.

No, not a lost cause, Douglas.
I live in France, am currently in Switzerland, and have only once encountered a tipping card reader: a Mexican taco place near the Louvre.
Even if using a US credit card instead of French, tips don’t appear. DCC, yes. Tip, no. It won’t fly with locals. Europeans aren’t transactional.

That’s very concerning that Margie found it so prevalent. I wonder what was the location of these restaurants. Next to the big attractions? Who are the real owners? The taco place had overseas investors. Not trying to be friendly with locals.

I have heard waiters in Mürren hitting up Americans for tips. But Mürren is a tourist haven. This should never happen. A restaurant owner in Saint Gallen told us everything was included and not to tip.

"As we were recently in Switzerland, France and the Netherlands, we found that almost all the credit card machines in restaurants now have a tip option that automatically comes up of 10, 15 and 20 percent."
My bet is that the CC machine was programed to do this only for US cards.

We were at restaurants in Zurich, Appenzel, next to the train station in Chur, Zermatt, even a hiking hut above Zermatt, Wengen, Evian and Amsterdam and Harlan. Granted these places are all catering to tourists but it was interesting in Evian where there were tourists but we never encountered any obviously Americans. All we heard was French and a wee bit of German.

Bets, I’m thinking the only place that didn’t have it was a locals pizza place in Evian.

In France and Germany I do more than merely rounding off and ,especially, in a table cloth establishment and I go there more than 3 times and maybe even having the same server more than twice. If my bill amounts to 24, 45 Euro , rounding off means 25 Euro . That won't do.

I tell him, make that 27 Euro , sometimes even 28 Euro. In Germany if it's dinner in a hotel, I pay with the cc. At a restaurant where I know the proprietor, s/he gets cash instead. In France I use the cc and tell the serve the final amount I'm paying to be put on the cc.

TRINKGELD: The origin of the German word is much clearer. The literal
meaning of “drink money” for gratuity is also found in other European
languages: pourboire in French, drikkepenge in Danish, and napiwek in
Polish. The practice of “drink money” can be traced back to the Middle
Ages. Trinckgelt (in Old German, later also Trankgeld, Trunkgeld)
first appeared in 1372 as the Latin term bibalia in Prague in the
weekly construction records for the cathedral there.
https://nhicasolisyante.wordpress.com/2018/05/23/trinkgeld/

So, essentially the Germans invented a word and stored that word, unused, in anticipation that someday Americans would arrive and start a trend. I suspect that that this has little to do with the dreaded Americans that only make up about 10% of the tourist in Europe to begin with. I think we credit ourselves with too much control and influence in world culture. I suspect, like in the country in which I live, that tipping is a much, much older tradition.

I once asked a local tourist service provider in my country of residence if she liked American tourists because they tipped so well. She corrected me and said Americans were among the worst tippers, the Germans were the good ones. I found that so curious that I asked in a few restaurants and bars where I know staff and sure enough they agreed that the Germans were the big tippers. Then when looking for some internet sources for tipping standards I ran into several that made note that the Germans were the best tippers in Europe.

Why are Americans bad tippers? Maybe because they read on the RS forum that there is no tipping in Europe … and believe it.

To that end, a little light reading, if you really care:

GERMANY (I tried to find .de sources)
https://www.berlin.de/en/tourism/travel-information/1758234-2862820-tipping.en.html
https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/tipping-in-germany-your-guide-to-when-where-and-how-much
https://blogs.fu-berlin.de/fubest/2021/09/01/tipping-ettiquette-in-germany/

For other countries you will have to research. Each is different in the detail and some really don’t have tipping in their culture but they probably don’t make up the majority of the countries in Europe.