What are "Visa Extras"?

Question

And why does Visa require that you select credit and sign rather than use your pin if you want to accumulate these points?

Answer 1

Visa Extras are rewards offered with Visa branded debit cards.  The card issuer wants you to select "credit" because they receive interchange income equal to approximately 1.25 percent of the purchase price when the transaction is processed via the Visa network.

When you select "debit" the transaction gets processed like an ATM transaction and the card issuer only gets about 25 cents, regardless of the transaction amount.