Originally Posted by pdisme

Unfortunately not in this case; she's not comfortable flying at all due to experiencing two separate emergency landings, like the full on grab your ankles we are going down fast and the lady in the seat next to you is yelling for Lord Jesus to save her kind of landings. I'd happily take the upgrade and give it to her but she'd prefer to be next to me when flying. My best option, in hindsight, would have been to hang up and call back when the first agent told me I had to split the PNR to get back to upgrade-requested status, but I didn't realize what she was telling me was wrong.