Before the new rule about # of family members that could sit with a 1K in E+, we would have to make more than 1 reservation even if 2 or 3 of the 3 passengers qualified for E+. I would have to pay the fee for my family member with same last name flying exact same routing on a different PNR. I know I could have put us all in one PNR and the called for manual seat assignments if at least one of the other flyers qualified, but them I would be subject to random sweeps. I hadn't thought about the "buy it together and then split the PNR solution" back then.