J.P. Morgan Ritz-Carlton Card 70,000 (1st year free) or 140,000 ($395 annual fee) - need to call

The 70K offer we previously covered for the Ritz-Carlton Card is pretty good considering your effective annual fee is $95 for the first year (when you make use of the $300 airlines credit).  However, there are two better offers now; they appear to be targeted, but there have been several reports that it works for everyone who picks up the phone and gives the representative the correct offer codes.

Call 1-888-846-7004 to apply:

• Offer code F53K: receive 70,000 points after spending $2,000 within 3 months and the 1st year annual fee is waived ($395 saving).
• Offer code F5BP: receive 140,000 points after spending $2,000 within 3 months but the annual fee is not waived.

So it is up to you if you want to get an additional 70,000 points by paying an extra $395 - looking at it as buying Ritz/Marriott points at 0.56 cent a piece.  The other thing we noticed was that the card is completely made of metal now - much heavier than the previous metal-plastic version.