OP said that the tickets (plural) were for a family vacation; I understood that to mean that several people were flying, so the miles from flying will be split between several accounts. If some are very infrequent flyers many of these RDMs will likely end up orphaned, or it may take a while (years) before there are enough on any one account to really be useful.

I understand the desire to maximize the miles from the purchase, but spend on AA is not really rewarded with any more miles than spend on anything else. CC bonuses can be surpassed by portal bonuses on spend that can be used for anything.