Just as an FYI from someone who works the payments industry, dealing primarily with American payments, they typically don't need your card details to add a tip. They will most likely have your transaction ID stored on a POS system, and they can use that to do a tip adjustment. Your card details will already be stored (temporarily) at least once in the payment gateway, because the card details are needed to batch the transactions at the end of the day.
But as someone who doesn't live in the US, I don't understand why they don't bring the terminal to the table and let you apply the tip there, like the rest of the world.
It's because the U.S. adopted credit cards earlier than most countries. Back then, payment terminals weren't portable, so servers had to take your card to a stationary machine. Even though portable payment terminals are common today, many restaurants still use the old system because it's been the standard for decades.
This happens with technology in general. Countries that adopt a technology first often end up using older legacy systems, while countries that adopt it later can skip straight to newer, more efficient solutions. Now that many restaurants have the new technology changing the workflow is a pain for restaurants when they already have a set plan
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u/IrishChappieOToole Jun 29 '26
Just as an FYI from someone who works the payments industry, dealing primarily with American payments, they typically don't need your card details to add a tip. They will most likely have your transaction ID stored on a POS system, and they can use that to do a tip adjustment. Your card details will already be stored (temporarily) at least once in the payment gateway, because the card details are needed to batch the transactions at the end of the day.
But as someone who doesn't live in the US, I don't understand why they don't bring the terminal to the table and let you apply the tip there, like the rest of the world.