Exactly. I don't know how a restaurant could do an earlier estimated
reservation of funds, when the only time you give the server your card
is either at the till on the way out, or at the table when he brings the
wireless terminal to you.

That would require a significant change to the way US restaurants work.

In Canada, where the restaurant culture is pretty much the same as in
the U.S., now that they have chip+pin, when you pay, they bring the
terminal to you and let you enter the tip before you enter the PIN.
It doesn't seem to have been a big deal.

I don't see why US restaurants would object, particularly since they'll
likely get fewer chargebacks with customer entered PINs and less opportunity
for staff to accidentally or deliberately mis-enter the tip.

--
Regards,
John Levine, , Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly