Have encountered similar situation as well, those cards payment are unnecessarily complicated and gate keep certain region for some reason. With bitcoin you just send the money and be done with it.
You only are safe if you use a non custodial, open source wallet that gives you private keys, and allows you to run your Bitcoin full node with more control on how you broadcast your transactions.
If you have bitcoins, store it on a centralized exchange, someday you will not be able to send (withdraw) your bitcoin from their platform.
Reminder: do not keep your money in online accounts.Bitcoin is just that good for payment method.
We can have our own banks with Bitcoin together with a good wallet, and surely we can use it as our payment method easily.