As far as I know there is no airline / hotel group at the moment who really sells status. Only sometimes (e. g. when introducing a new level or a promotion) there are some "fast tracks" to that status or matching status of comptetitors within the own programme.
For Star alliance you can buy into US Airways status.
http://www.usairways.com/en-US/divid...preferred.html
And for hotels, all the points you purchase in Priority Club are also status points and help you to qualify for gold (which can be bought for $50 anyway) or Platinum.