Do Virgin EC train staff really have this power?

[arrivaarriva]

The youngish male employee had walked through the carriage around 20 minutes previously checking tickets.  Then he came back.  He was clearly hoping he wouldn't be overheard but he was.  The "attractive" young blonde female he had chatted and laughed with during his ticket check, having clearly never met her before, was invited to move to First Class for the rest of the journey to London King's Cross.  Admittedly the evening service was half empty, but being upgraded for free simply because the employee offering the upgrade likes the look of you does not really seem either appropriate or acceptable.

[Deleted]

Feb 1, 2018 19:07:11 GMT arrivaarriva said:

The youngish male employee had walked through the carriage around 20 minutes previously checking tickets.  Then he came back.  He was clearly hoping he wouldn't be overheard but he was.  The "attractive" young blonde female he had chatted and laughed with during his ticket check, having clearly never met her before, was invited to move to First Class for the rest of the journey to London King's Cross.  Admittedly the evening service was half empty, but being upgraded for free simply because the employee offering the upgrade likes the look of you does not really seem either appropriate or acceptable.

Yes. They do.

VTEC have this rewards system called 'Surprise and Delight'. I know a lot of VTEC staff. How it works is if you book x amount of tickets, the crew will get told by an app to choose a reward to give you. One of the rewards is an FC upgrade. However, they are allowed to give these rewards to anyone, even if they're not told to (which has worked to my advantage a number of times!). That's why it happens.