I lost my wallet a couple of weeks ago, for the first time ever.

I've been hanging on, as I'm 90% sure it is in the house/car somewhere, although I haven't managed to find it (I last used it in Tesco two weeks ago and not at all since). I finally gave in and cancelled my card (only normally carry a single card nowadays) and ordered a new driving licence.

The new debit card came today and I went to remove the old one/add new one on my iPhone/Apple Watch. I was about to remove it, when I realised the new card number was already there on both devices.

Some times "it just works" just works

I must go and read up on whether the card would have worked on phone/watch in the period between cancelling the card and the new one arriving.

I've ordered my replacement fancy wallet, not cheap but they work so well if you carry a tiny handful of cards and rarely any cash.

https://www.tombihn.com/products/minimalist-wallets?variant=13762315223103

Also, it is about time Tesco stopped their low authenticated contactless limit scam on non Tesco payment methods. It is basically the only place I ever have to use the physical card now (excepting getting cash out, which I think I could do with my phone, but only at some cash points).

The only other place I can remember using the actual card recently was the Skoda dealership. I could not convince the sales guy there that waving my watch over the reader was an appropriate way to pay a £24,000 bill

There is a lot going on behind the scenes with Apple Pay.

When you add your card to Apple Pay, you are not actually adding THAT card number to Apple Pay. Apple simply uses the card number and related info to engine the process or verifyzing with the card issuer that you are really you and that your account at the card issuer is valid.

Often there is an additional step where you must connect with the issuer and confirm/authorize the addition of Apple Pay to your account.

When all this is complete, the Apple Pay on your iPhone is linked to the account at the card issuer, and that linkage is quite separate from the card number on the plastic card you used to initiate the process.

Every time you use Apple Pay, the iPhone uses a unique one-time-use ‘number’ to authorize the purchase. Apple Pay Also coordinates with the card issuer for each payment, and when the transaction is complete there is no way for the retailer to ‘re-use’ the payment info to cause another payment to occur.

If the plastic card (number) needs to replaced, that does not affect Apple Pay since it does not ‘use‘ the same number that is on the plastic card. And since Apple Pay directly communicates with the card issuer via the Internet, Apple Pay is kept current with changes to your account.

I was aware of most of those details, though was still unsure of whether the virtual card was usable between cancellation and reissuing (because the app on the phone/watch does actually display the physical card number, even though it is using its own one in the background).

Your card issuer could answer that question.

Apple Pay is a different enough system that it took a while for my card issuers to fully understand how it all worked. Eventually they would connect me to someone who was up to speed and could provide complete answers.

More recently when I call them the initial answer tends to be on point.