Tom,

I hear two distinct questions in your post.

1. How to get status fast.
2. What is the best airline on which to spend miles?

What airline do you currently fly? Do you currently have status on any airline (most other airlines will comp you to equal status)? Is your international travel paid for by your company? Will they pay for business class? Do you have a choice of airlines?

If the answer to all of the above questions is "yes", then (especially living in San Diego) you should definitely take a look at becoming an MVP Gold Elite on Alaska Air. They let you book award travel (no charge) via the telephone on the day of flight if it is available and the choice of airline on which you can use miles includes, NWA, TWA, AA, CO, BA, KLM, CA, Lan Chile, and Quantas. They also have some pretty smoking credit card mileage accumulation programs.

You can earn miles on all partners and status miles on AA, CA (Codeshare), KLM, Lan Chile, and NWA.

All in all this is the best deal I have found and I have always been able to find the award flights I needed.

Hope this helps.