Wow thanks for all the help! As some of you may have guessed, when I was traveling with my father he didn't have a skymiles account and wanted to earn his AS miles. We booked it separately because he joined me at one of my layovers. Luckily there was an awesome gate agent after me being persistent because I knew there were several empty seats in F he put my dad with me up there! So what I'm understanding is there are 3 different options we can go by, 1) Book together and have her have my benefits but have a low chance of upgrade. 2) Book together and then have them split the reservations and I would get my upgrade and she'd get an upgrade after everyone. 3) Book separately and have them connect the PNR numbers (She'd need a Skymiles number for this?)
I'm doing this as a favor for my best friend, she doesn't want to travel alone and we both need to get up there for his christmas party. Plus she's never flown in first class before, what are the options of me getting an upgrade and just giving it to her? I've been up there countless times. I'm not sure if booking together is an option, her parents are getting her a ticket.