I think that, when he mention debit card, he narrowly refer to those traditionally bank-issued debit card, of which most do not have a reward program. So he think it is insane to waste your monthly quota with a payment generating nothing. However, I guess in your case, you broadly define those visa/masetrcard gift card as "debit card" as well (as "DEBIT" is printed on the card). In this case, you most likely get the visa gift card with some bonus earning credit cards, so you are doing correctly. You are just liquidating the visa/ mastercard GC. The two "debit" cards above are not always treated equally. For example, in many debit card load (such as redcard), I read you can't use the visa GC as debit card load.