Primary Question:

I'm helping some family members book a domestic award flight. There's two people (husband & wife) and they each have only enough miles for their own award ticket. I was wondering if it is possible for me to help them book each of their tickets online normally and then call to join the PNRs? Essentially, they're somewhat old and not good at traveling so I want to make especially sure that there's no confusion that they're travelling together. Any thoughts?

Secondary Question:

I was considering using some of the miles from my account to upgrade them. I know for domestic award tickets it's 45k for first. Would I have to pay the 20k difference for each of them? Is that even allowed on award reservations?

Thanks.

~grizzly

No.
No.

After the separate tickets are booked, call WP to get them seated together, and ask the WP rep to note in their records that they are travelling together.

If you want to get them upgraded, you could give each of them enough miles as a gift, but that costs a little money.

But note that you can't upgrade an award ticket - you'd actually have to transfer the miles into each of their accounts and then book F award tickets - but before doing that, if you decide to do that, it'd be best to ensure that the availability is there. If you've got enough miles, you may as well just cash them out 2 F tickets from your own account & have them owe you the miles in their account - or just give them the F tickets as a present - depending on how close you are with these relatives

That's what I meant to say, but bhatnasx said it much more clearly.