Richard E. Smith of Long Beach, California, urged readers to comment about tipping on tours (April ’07, pg. 4). Questions he asked included 1) “Should the cost of tipping be included in the tour price?,” 2) “Should there be an existing standard for tipping adhered to by most tour companies?,” 3) “Should an escrow tipping account be set up for each traveler, to be refunded partially or in toto (the reason being that some cheapskates never tip a penny)?,” and 4) “Should travel companies be...

My husband, Shayne, and I had a very enjoyable 3-week trip to Morocco with Overseas Adventure Travel (Cambridge, MA; 800/221-0814, www.oattravel.com) in October ’06. We took their “Morocco Sahara Odyssey” plus the Essaouira and Casablanca extension.

We paid approximately $2,700 each for the main trip, which included economy air from New York (JFK), plus $700 each for the 5-night pretrip to Essaouira and Casablanca.

The main trip included 10 nights in hotels, three nights in...

We ate at the restaurant Lubitsch in Berlin in May ’07. Recommended by a reader (Jan. ’07, pg. 75), it is indeed a very fine place to eat — good food and good ambience at a reasonable price. I think we had a starter and a main course each, two glasses of wine, two beers, mineral water and coffee and our bill was €66 (about $91) for two.

However, as at a number of big-city German restaurants, printed on the credit card slip which we had to sign was the line, “Does not include tip.” All...