You won't get instant status through a credit card application, just, for the most part, award miles, but for the time you're looking to travel, AA could work for you. In addition to the potential to get 150K (or 225K if you get two personal cards and a business card later), during the time you're looking to travel, AA offers Economy MileSAAver Off Peak fares at 40K roundtrip. Availability obviously dries up on these kinds of awards, however, so you'd need to get the cards and do the spending so that you could still hope to find some availability.

A second option is US Airways. Get their credit card. This card actually gives you 10K miles toward Dividend Miles Preferred status--not enough to qualify for status alone, but a start. There are some status benefits with the card, however, including preferred seating and check-in, as well as a 5000-mile discount on award bookings. The thread on this card: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...5k-benies.html.

Then consider doing the US Airways Grand Slam promotion to earn extra miles. There's an entire subforum at FT on this promotion right now (under Airline Programs/US Airways), which could allow you to earn 100K miles (those with status can get 110K) for doing a number of things, such as buying something on the US Airways credit card, renting cars, staying in hotels, transferring points from airline and hotel programs to US. Even if you only do about half of these things, you still could get another 35K miles to add to the 40K credit card mile signup bonus.

If you're willing to adjust your travel dates to complete your travel by the end of February, you could then take advantage of US's off-peak awards: economy for 35K roundtrip (and 5K less if you get the credit card) and if you can get 80K through the Grand Slam promotion, two Envoy class tickets for 55K each (60K minus 5K for the credit card). Of course, the principle about award availability drying up applies here as well.

BA's good, but be aware that their taxes and fees can add a substantial cost to an award ticket. BA is about to make changes to their award chart that will lower the mileage required to fly from the East Coast to many European cities. I have the Chase BA card and just finished a trip to Scotland on BA. I love BA, especially for business and first-class travel, but you should expect taxes and fees to add at least $800 to each higher-class award ticket and even with economy-class tickets, taxes and fees will total about $560.

If your fiancee's credit is good, she could make similar applications for any or all of these cards to speed up the process.