You Can Tip Your Amazon Drive $5 For Free This Holiday Season
And it only takes a couple of seconds to do it.
It can be hard to know when to tip someone and when it’s not expected — and with the holidays, inflation, and current events, showing appreciation to service workers is more important than ever. With the world swirling around us, people wonder: Should I tip my hotel housekeeper? My babysitter? My sanitation workers?
At the same time, family budgets are tight — for the same reason that budgets are tight for service workers. It can feel like you’re being asked for tips multiple times a day when it feels like you are already counting pennies.
Well, here’s an easy one for you: this week, you can tip your Amazon driver $5 for their hard work, totally for free. And Amazon is making it easy.
Here’s the deal: This is the second year that Amazon is running a driver tip promotion around the holidays to show appreciation to their workers who go hard from Black Friday to last minute gifting. All customers have to do is request to tip them, which can happen in two ways.
First, if you have an Alexa device, you can just say, “Alexa, thank my driver.”
Second, you can search for “Thank my driver” on Amazon (desktop or phone app) and you’ll be guided from there.
I tried it and it worked!
Amazon will “thank” drivers with $5 tips for the first two million thank yous. After that, they’ll continue to send drivers notifications that they did a great job.
Should you be tipping all of your delivery drivers? While — surprise! — the internet is torn on the topic, people can agree on the fact that you shouldn’t at all feel obligated to tip a driver every time they deliver a package. But a “thank you” for a heavy package or a small gift around the holiday season are nice gestures even if they’re not expected.
Specifically, FedEx drivers can’t accept tips, but they can accept small one-time gifts year round.
USPS mail carriers are also told not to take cash, but they can accept small gifts worth $20 for special occasions, like a holiday.
UPS drivers are “encouraged” not to accept tips, but they, too, can receive small items of thanks — a spokesperson for the company suggested cookies, mittens, cards, and kids’ artwork.
In recent years, it’s become popular to leave out drinks and snacks for drivers during their busiest season, and that seems totally cool to all delivery outlets. Over on Reddit, delivery drivers say that they appreciate any snacks they can eat without touching it with their hands (which get dirty on the job), water and Gatorade, and coffee drinks.
They also said that a sincere “thank you” goes a very long way.
And check your doorbell cams to catch thankful driver reactions.
