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[04:56:42 AM Thursday, July 03, 2008]
How Many Credit Card Holders Can a Waiter Serve?Paying with credit cards has become so common nowadays, that you will hardly find a retailer or some services provider that do not accept plastics. You can stop at Starbucks on your way to work, buy a latte for $2.60 and pay with a credit card for it. That is quite normal. When you take a girl on a date to a restaurant and each one of you pays with your own cards, that is fine. But when you go out to eat somewhere in a company of 5, 7 or more friends, this can cause troubles. To be more exact, not for you, but for restaurant staff and owners. What is the problem? Today, dining out at a fast food restaurant or any other public catering place, you can see something like "Maximum 4 credit cards per table, please." at the bottom of menu. In fact, it is quite common for America, when every person pays for his or her dinner with a plastic. No matter if it is a company of friends, a family or co-workers. What bothers restaurant administration then? First of all, serving several visitors who pays with plastics at a time is a bad headache for waiters. Especially in rush hours during lunch and dinner. It takes pretty much time to process several credit cards. A waiter should swipe it, enter the code, wait until the transaction is completed, give the check to a customer to sign. All these procedures can take up to 3 minutes. And what if a waiter is to serve 10 people? Right. He or she can spend nearly half an hour! And other visitors will have to wait all this time. Besides, it is really easy to mess something up in a rush. A waiter can mix the credit card numbers, charge the wrong sum. And if a waiter messed up, it is he or she who will be in charge for that. And in the best-case scenario the waiter will pay for the mistake and, probably, will be deprived of the tips. And if the restaurant's management is really harsh, they can fire the waiter. Moreover, merchants have to pay transaction fees to credit card companies. Such a fee usually makes up 2-3%. It depends on the type of a card and the cost of a purchase. Rewards credit cards, charge cards, foreign, debit and corporate credit cards are attached the highest fee. So, you see that credit cards profusion can really give some hard times to restaurant owners. But of course, it does not mean that you should leave your credit cards at home when going out for a dinner. Especially if it is a cash back credit card that gives you a part of your money spent back, or an airlines card deal that grants you rewards for dining. What you can do to ease your waiter's life? Every time you dine out, choose a person or two who will pay for the food. Let everybody count how much they owe and give their part of money to the "payer". Change the payer every time. This way you will not cause any problems for your waiter and all of you will get their piece of credit card bonus points in turn.
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