All airlines charge money to transfer miles from one account to another. It is not that it costs anything – the cost of the miles and the cost of transferring the miles is completely irrelevant. Without any charge at all, there would be no incentive to fly (or spend) to accumulate mileage. When you want an award, rather than flying (or spending) to increase your mileage balance, you would simply gang up with a bunch of people with minimal mileage balances to accumulate enough miles for the award.

You can gift miles to someone else without being charged for it. I have done it many times. It requires that you have enough miles for the award in your own account. You then redeem the award in your friend's name.

The fact that there is a threshold - you need 40K miles in one account for the above award - rewards the frequent flyer (or spender). You said yourself that your friend doesn't fly a lot. In that case, she should not be allowed to "network" for free and take a scarce award seat away from a frequent flyer. This is not a hypothetical - there are millions of people with small amounts of orphaned miles sitting around.

I feel your friend’s pain but you are barking up the wrong tree here.