In theory your Dad could use:

Confirmed Systemwide Upgrade" PMO/UG-SYSTEM

or

Sweetspot Systemwide Upgrade" PMO/UG-SWEET SPOT

to upgrade any single segment on LH, say YVR-FRA. The upgrade is only available to request at check-in and/or the gate.

LH used to accept UA Sales Upgrades, they started doing this back in 2001. (Sales Division Global Status Upgrade" S*PMO/UG-MPS-Global is a Sales upgrade.) However I cannot verify that this is still the case.