^

I tried the card at a number of different merchants that supported debit, and it behaved as expected after I entered the 6-digit PIN. I was even able to get a hot dog at Costco! Also, for the record, rewards were earned on the entire purchase amount of the debit transaction.

One caveat is that I did get a call from ICBC after I had used the card 5 or 6 times. I don't know if it's because they were all fallback transactions or because I hadn't used the card in awhile. While I haven't used the card in a few months, I was unable to find a merchant that supports PBOC transactions in the US.