Reflexive pronoun use when subject is a subset of the prepositional object

If I were the writer, I'd say

John bought the tickets for himself and me

The reflexive pronoun is better placed after the subject and the verb phrase. Otherwise an even easier workaround would be:

John bought tickets for (the) both of us.

It looks neater and there is no ambiguity.

P.S credit and my thanks to @deadrat who pointed out a discrepancy with the wording