How do you tip cash when you don't have proper denomination or no cash at all?

Question

Many countries have moved to cashless payment systems to the point where the need for cash has almost been entirely eliminated. On a recent trip to 3 countries in Europe I used cash only twice (parking meter and one card machine at the museum was broken).

At the same time expectation around scope and amount of tipping is going up everywhere. Even in countries that used to be tip free lots of people now expect tips for most interactions. The expectation is often a cash tip. For example one tour provider in South Africa gave clear instruction: you are expected to tip, you should tip every person individually right when the interaction happens, and you should tip in cash. Since South Africa is mostly a cash free country, pretty much 100% of our cash expense was tip.

That creates a difficult situation for the traveler. Cash is highly undesirable: it's expensive, often difficult to get, easy to lose or get stolen, hard to track, and sometimes outright dangerous. Ironically most websites strongly discourage carrying cash in South Africa.

A related problem is not having the right denominations. For example in India ₹100 is convenient tip but the smallest thing that comes out of an ATM (even if you find a working one) is ₹500. Banks are hard to find and many merchants refuse to make change or pretend they don't have any (so they can keep the change). If you happen to have some ₹100 bills in the morning, by 11:00am you are out.

Overall this has become a major nuisance with awkward situations and mad scrambles to find an ATM and/or get correct change.

Questions

1. What are best practices to deal with cash tips when otherwise you don't need cash at all?
2. How to get proper "tipping cash" cost effective, safely and efficiently?
3. Any tips or tricks or best practices are welcome to.

Answer 1

I can't speak to how it works in other countries, but here in Mexico we usually just ask them if they can make change for a larger amount. If they're receiving cash tips already, they usually are quite able and happy to (in fact I can't remember anyone ever saying "no").

Can you make change for $200? Keep $50 as tip.

As for when we don't have cash we simply apologise and tell them we have no cash, or we head to a nearby ATM and ask if they can make change for $200.

Mexico (or at least Tijuana, where we live) is predominantly a cash society though, so we almost always have some cash on us.

Answer 2

Although it's been some time since I've had the issue (almost everything is electronic and contactless at that), I usually do something like:

(handing a $50 bill), "just give me a ten back" or "small change please" (the latter basically tells them that you are intending to tip and if they bring back a $20 and coins when the tip should be $10 or $12, they stand a fairly high chance of being left with only the coins, especially since you specifically requested it).

If you're in a place that deals in cash, it's a bit more effort, each time you buy something small use a large bill until you have a comfortable amount of cash in large/small/medium denominations (and don't let the clerk see your stash of small bills or they may ask for the small bills). Usually they'd prefer to make the change rather than lose the sale. And as you are leaving, it's the same thing in reverse- pay for larger purchases with wads of low-denomination bills until you're down to an amount you can exchange, donate or keep as a souvenir. When you are exchanging, the foreign notes they have are usually fairly large denomination so you might want to roughly calculate the remaining amount so you can get the maximum in the foreign currency.

I don't have a solution for crooked taxi drivers that pretend to be unable to make change, fortunately Didi, Uber, Grab, BiTaksi, Bolt, Cabify, HKTaxi, Loca etc. have made that problem go away permanently. On the other hand, if you ever do have to use cash they may well not have change. I guess you could ask them to stop at a convenience store or whatever but if they're taking you to the airport there might not be anything like that easily available, so better to be careful to avoid that situation. If a tip is involved and more-or-less mandatory, it's usually acceptable enough to give them the tip in some other widely accepted currency such as Euro, USD or that of a friendly neighboring country. Nobody wants your ratty USD $1 bills though in many places overseas though, crisp and larger denomination bills only.

Answer 3

It depends.

Excursions, bus, guides, etc.: you get clear instruction in advance, so you can prepare some cash. Note: and now it is also frequent that they allow contactless tips (depending on how easier would be for people to pay more tips).

Else: just ask to add in the bill: some machines requires you select the tip (or no tip) before finalizing the payment. But in such case, you may want to do some search on Internet about customs on each country: some countries have bad employees which do not distribute fairly the tip, so you may need to prepare some cash (OTOH you may see that the tips will be put in the tip pot, so it will be shared anyway, and hopefully fairly).

As last resource: no tip: you didn't get the "service of the tip". In fact it seems that tipping is reducing. (but check customs for target country, and also considering the wages).

Answer 4

1. What are best practices to deal with cash tips when otherwise you don't need cash at all?

The best practice is to NOT tip, that works everywhere.

2. How to get proper "tipping cash" cost effective, safely and efficiently?

By not tipping, you act most cost efficient, safe (cause you have no cash) and most efficiently overall.

3. Any tips or tricks or best practices are welcome to.

Stop tipping, hope that helps.