So, I was out to dinner with a friend and we were using a Groupon. At the end of dinner, the question came up about how to properly tip.

One thought was that you tip on the value of the Groupon plus any extra money that you spend – so if the Groupon deal is $25 for $50 worth of food,  tip on the $25 + any extra food that was purchased.

I always thought that you tip on the TOTAL value of the food, i.e. tip on the $50 + any extra food. After a brief discussion, I decided to read the fine print of my Groupon, which said to tip on the value of the Groupon. This was not as specific as I would have liked, so I called Groupon to clear this up.

The Answer: (Ding, Ding, Ding!!)

The very nice customer service rep at Groupon said that you should tip on the TOTAL value of the Groupon + any extra food you buy. So, in this case, you would tip on the $50 + any extra food that was purchased over the value of the Groupon.

I wonder how much confusion is out there about this. This is probably why some restaurants aren’t happy to see people w/Groupons and other daily deals…What do you think?