Well what about splitting up the routes. Just looked at AA and we could fly one way to Paris from Chicago with 120k miles. I currently have 25k. I could apply for an AA card to get another 50k. Any other way to boost AA miles?
On the way back, we could fly Aer Lingus via Avios. We could each apply for a British Airways card which would net us 100k miles.
Thoughts?