Not getting 3% cash back on Nike purchases as promised

I've been buying a ton of Nike merchandise from Nike dot com and paying using my Apple virtual card Mastercard. But I'm only getting 1% back no matter which month I made the purchase in. I called Apple Card and was told that the reason I'm not getting 3% is because I used the wrong card number. I'm not supposed to use Apple Virtual Card, I'm supposed to use Apple Pay Card number, which also means (if this was true), that I can only buy Nike from my phone via the app in order to use the Apple Pay to pay.

These hoops I had to jump thru aren't worth it.

Had I known, I wouldn't even bother to use Apple credit card at all. I get at least 2% cash backs from my other major credit cards. This is lame.