USA travel advice

[peterc]

Hi guys, having just returned from the good old US of A I thought it worthy of just offering some travel advice in case any of you were hoping to depart across the pond in search of parts.
You will of course be well aware of the decline in the £/$ exchange rate which might well put most of you off purchasing parts for the time being.
The big shock that I had was the rather large increase in tipping expectations. The last time I visited it was of course expected to tip 10% but now expectations are a minimum of 17% !
The bill presented once or twice already included 18% with a request for more. All the others printed the cost of options for you to add being either 16,18,20% or 15,20,25%. Personally I think this is taking the mickey when tips are meant to be for enhanced service not employees salary.
Not forgetting of course that each price needs local and state taxes added first which normally exceeds 10%.
Our tour company suggested that the waiters were automatically taxed at 17% of expected tipping being based on the establishments turn over. Whether this was true or not it was clear that restaurants expected a sizeable tip on every bill.
So be warned that you need deeper pockets to eat anything in a cafe or restuarant. This doesn't apply to take away outlets like Starbucks.
I didn't think that the prices were that cheap either being on a par with here at home and certainly not down at Beefeater level but then again if the exchange rate was over 1.6 it may well have looked more inviting.
Peter C

[David Large]

We have very recently returned from a visit to our son (Duncan) and daughter-in-law. Duncan has lived there for 11 years and this year he did warn me about tipping and how it has increased. He reckons that the correct way to tip in restaurants is at 20% of the bill before the local tax is added. I think it has been some years since tipping was at 10% in the New York area.
Peter is right although I didn't see any printed suggestions on bills.

David