How does credit card waiver work? Is there any criteria we need to hit in order to be eligible for the waiver of annual fee?

You definitely don't need to be scared!

As long as you are spending (even minimally) on the card and are credit worthy (pay on time etc), they would waive it for you. Think about it, they would much rather keep their users, given the competitive space.

That said, I don't enjoy calling companies to wave the credit card fee, which is why I initially signed up for the CIMB card, which has straight up zero annual fee.

It shouldn't be a problem to waive your credit card annual fee so long as you use your card regularly and make payment before the deadline after receiving your credit card statement.

If they dun waive just cancel the card, dont need to be scared. Some stuff to be careful of is some people have multiple cards from a single bank and they dont let them waive until they cancel some of the cards, i know its weird and i also dont know why. Try not to get instalment plan with the card because if they want you to pay annual fees, you cant cancel your card. Just remember you have advantage of not paying annual fees because you can just cancel the card unless you gave them advantage by doing something with your card. Remember to make to pay your bills on time, there is absolutely no point in paying more interest for your stuff. Utilize the card properly to get more benefits not give extra money to the bank. If cannot control, just cancel it before it do more harms to you.