This story proves that none of it matters if your money along with your account vanish because the megacorp doesn't like your gift card for whatever reason.

In fact, it is far worse than paying with a credit card directly in terms of risk. At least, when something goes wrong (which rarely ever happens), the bank has your back. On the other hand, I have seen too many cases where people find their gift card codes invalid.

> At least, when something goes wrong (which rarely ever happens), the bank has your back.

Not really helpful when your account is the important thing though, you can't do a chargeback without your account getting banned.