You can make a reservation for yourself and one companion with seat assignments in E+ in the same PNR, then ticket only your companion. Cancel your own reservation, and repeat for each flyer. Note that you would probably need a cooperative T/A to do this such that all the companions were seated together. Any attempt to change seats later would result in E- seats.

I'm not advocating you do this, just pointing out that it is possible according the policies programmed into the system.