Thanks mduell and channa for the replies. Having both tickets on the same record is good but not essential for me. I like CO's system better as it shows more partners and i would like to keep my options open for making changes. With past award tickets, usually better connections or routes became available after buying the tickets and CO makes these changes for free as long as it's more than 21 days in advance (no status).

I have used the process that channa described of searching for 2 seats and then having 2 browsers on two PC's to buy the tickets but I was thinking this time of using the "hold" route.