Originally Posted by
Majuki
If it's broken then that would seem to be the case. The cash back was possible since Discover allows you to get cash back without a fee (although I don't believe such transactions award points on the cash back amount). With UnionPay the entire transaction amount was recorded as a purchase. It worked as a debit card successfully at Costco and USPS at least back in 2017. I believe Costco no longer works, and at least the self service kiosk supports PBOCCARD. I don't know about the terminals inside though.
Safeway:
2019 Oct - I tested Safeway cashback at self-checkout and it did the swipe fallback to debit card mode to get $200 cash with a PIN like an ATM card.
2021 Feb - I retested Safeway and it now had full contactless UnionPay support. Fallback for cash definitely dead.
Costco:
2019 July - Tested and it was unusable as either swipe or chip card due to infinite loop of swipe & insert. Haven't tested at Costco since.