Caesar's is now charging an automatic 18% gratuity charge for room
service in addition to a $5 service charge.
My gf thinks the service charge used to be less - $3 or so.
She also said the room service menu prices have gone up one or a few
dollars per item.
The first time we had room service, she toked the guy $5, as she
hadn't noticed that the gratuity is now added to the bill.
We had always voluntarily toked the delivery person.
But here's the disturbing part -
At checkout, they now add the $5 service charge with the gratuity as
one total. And the comp dollars cannot be used to pay any of this.
Formerly, there was NOT a gratuity added to the bill.
And the service charge was included in the overall bill and could be
paid for with comp dollars.
So now one orders a sandwich which costs $13 plus $5 service charge
plus $2.34 gratuity plus $1.01 tax for a total of $21.35.
At checkout, one can use comp dollars to pay for $14.01 of that bill
(food and tax).
But one has to pay out of pocket (cash, credit card) $7.34, whereas
previously the only out of pocket would've only been whatever one
chose to toke the server voluntarily.
Why not include the service charge with the food charge and allow comp
dollars to pay for it?
Who knows.