Originally Posted by
Kacee
It's not just "out of the ordinary" to give someone else your upgrade, it's not allowed. From the airline's perspective, you either take the upgrade, or you reject it, in which case the GA upgrades the next passenger on the list. We do not get to assign our place in the upgrade queue to another passenger.
Swapping seats once you are onboard, by contrast, happens all the time and is generally not an issue.
This. I gave my mom my upgrade last year. I knew I'd been upgraded and had both BPs, so I just told her that when we boarded, she was going to sit in my upgrade seat. Showed her the seat, told the FA that I was giving her my upgrade seat. I think they see this scenario a lot: younger traveler has status upgrades from work or more frequent travel and gives the better seat to the older relative.