I know a paid and award ticket can't be on the same PNR, but I've done it before without problems. However, that was when both passengers had status.

In this case it would be myself (1P) paid, my wife (GM) on an award ticket, flying SFO-PEK & PVG-LAX-SFO. Is this asking for problems? Obviously I'd want to have us both in an exit row, but wouldn't be able to book that at the time of getting the award ticket.

Would best strategy be to book the award ticket first and then mine, vice versa, or does it matter? Would it be best to do one of the tickets over the phone to handle the seating change, or do everything after-the-fact (saving the phone ticketing charge)?

All this because it became too easy to rationalize an eqm-earning ticket when the fare came down a bit, and thinking about the extra 22,000 RDMs. Realistically the extra EQMs serve no purpose except to torture me (giving me 62,000 EQMs, putting me in that never-never-land place between 1P and PP or whatever the 75k gig is called).

Thanks!