Tipping Private Tour Guides

I know this subject has been covered in the past, but my search of the forums did not yield me a direct answer. I'm interested in the consensus related to a fairly high-dollar tour. For instance, a two-day tour of St. Petersburg with guide and driver booked through Red October for two people. The total cost for two people gets up over $700. I've read comments suggesting a 10-15% tip is appropriate. That seems high to me. I mean that would be a tip of $70 to $105! Am I a cheapskate? Is that what everybody does?

Scott

We tipped the driver/guide 10% of the total cost of the tour.....So (for example) if the total came to $1000, we gave $30 to the driver and $70 to the guide.

We tipped the driver/guide 10% of the total cost of the tour.....So (for example) if the total came to $1000, we gave $30 to the driver and $70 to the guide.

We did the same.

Did you tip in USD, cash and did you pay for the Guide/driver's lunch on the tour days?

If so, how, credit card or cash?

Thanks

Steve

In Russia, we used an ATM (it was in one of the churches) to get out Rubles (sp?) and tipped the driver and guide with that so they did not have to pay commission to exchange USD; it was at our decision-not suggested by the guide. Our ATM card appears to have made the exchange exactly as posted on the oanda.com site, and we get 4 free ATM uses a month, so it worked out well. We paid our tour company in USD, there would not have been a way to get that much rubles out due to the daily limit. We paid for the guide's lunch, and tried to pay for the driver's, but he refused and I did not want to make him feel uncomfortable.

They will gladly take USD cash!

We paid for lunch for the driver and guide the first day and just for the guide the 2nd day because our driver had already eaten. We split about 12 percent of the total cost of our tour between the 2 of them, with 70 percent of it going to the guide and the rest to the driver. Of course if you don't think your driver or guide gave you a good tour, then tip them less.

Diana

Steve, we paid the guide/driver at the end of the 2nd day, both in USD. We had them already to go in sealed envelopes, so there was no hassling at the end of the trip.

I pointedly asked Svetlana what was the expected tip and in what denomination. She said of course it was entirely up to my discretion but this is normally done at the end of the tour and usually the guide would be tipped $30.00-$40.00 Usd per day and half that amount would go to the driver per day. I had read on this site some spent more or less. We were very pleased and since it was only the two of us this tour cost a pretty penny but we still tipped $100.00 to Elena and $50.00 to Dmitry. These days were packed and quite long (almost 11 hours first day.) We also bought Elena lunch both days, Dmitry always declined but we offered.

It's obviously personal preference but as I said we were thrilled with our experience and wouldn't hesistate to do it again. Elena became like a friend with our exchanging cards and planning on keeping in touch.

AAL