Travel Blog


Tipping for Valet Parking

Tipping for Valet Parking

Have you ever used the valet parking services at hotels or other venues that offer such services? Many people have and most are more than satisfied with the service. You have the convenience of not having to find a place to park your car. Or deal with the weather if it is out door parking. Also the cold if it happens to be winter time. We have used these services quite a few times and usually were satisfied with the service. We would tip $5 for the service and felt that our car would be parked in a safe place. It would be returned to us in the same condition that we found it in.

In every case but one it came back in exactly the same condition. In the one instance that it did not, we feel that it was no fault of the parking attendant. However we really cannot be sure. We will discuss each of these instances which has led us to never allow valet parking attendants to park our car ever again.

Valet Parking – Experience

The first instance actually did not involve our car at all. We were waiting for our car to be brought up to us so that we could leave the place we had spent an nice evening at. As we watched other cars being delivered to other people we noticed that the attendants would bring the cars up from underground, turn left and then have to drive about a 1000 feet to where everyone was standing. We watched them rev the engine and roar up to the pickup point. Much too fast in our opinion to be actually unsafe and they were revving an engine that was still cold. Not the way I want my car to be treated.

Another situation that we encountered involved our car being dropped off at a major hotel. We assumed that it would be stored in covered garage which was protected and inspected from a security perspective. They drove it to an open parking lot and left it unprotected in any way. Now the car would not start the next morning due to mechanical problems, which we subsequently resolved, however I wonder how a perfectly good car could suddenly develop mechanical problems!

New Orleans Valet Service

The last example was in New Orleans and I really did not have a choice as to using valet. There was no self parking nearby. The car came back to us in one piece, no damage and everything that was in the car was still there. The service was definitely worth it in this case. What I am objecting to was that the attendant was well over 300 pounds and I was worried whether my seats in my car would sag due to the weight.

In all cases, these three above and those that we have not discussed, we had to wait a long time to get our car. It was busy, but then I really do not want to wait 30 minutes in one case to get a car that I could have just parked myself and got to it in five minutes. So I really do not want to tip valet parking attendants for poor service.

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