I agree with doing this in phases... so one spouse applies for the two AA cards and gets 100,000 miles. But right now, both spouses should sign up for United Mileage Plus and Continental OnePass accounts, if they don't have them already. There are reports of some people (yours truly included) having accounts with UA/CO, with zero miles and zero activity in the account, getting targeted for the "50,000 miles on first use" cards. So I'd echo the advice above, with the added point that, if they open UA & CO accounts, they might get lucky and get targeted for one or even two cards.