Short of getting an agent who knows enough SHARES to know how to put them back on the upgrade list at the 1K companion priority (C1K) on the day of departure, nothing that can really be done, and even that wouldn't put them at the same level/priority as the sponsor, it would be after all 1Ks. Given their push to have agents using the GUI's instead of SHARES, that knowledge is quickly dwindling, I doubt their GUI makes it possible to put someone at a companion level since that really isn't a concept anymore (supposed to be on the same reservation for the upgrade), but with their recent IT changes, seems like that would be good knowledge/feature to have, especially when the system is splitting reservations when it shouldn't. Unfortunately looks like it is here to stay for the time being until they workout what is causing this to happen and get it properly patched.