NFC turning off by itself...

Ha! You figured it out. Using the camera without unlocking turns off NFC.

Man that's irritating. I don't notice NFC is off until I've already started the car and am driving down the road. Scan one of my tags and nada.
 
Ha! You figured it out. Using the camera without unlocking turns off NFC.

Man that's irritating. I don't notice NFC is off until I've already started the car and am driving down the road. Scan one of my tags and nada.

So this appears to be by design. If you have a password, pin, or fingerprint protected lock screen and you use the camera from that locked screen, technically one could gain access to the touchless payment software. It's like the camera isn't sandboxed so that's their solution.

You can get the best of both worlds by only using the swipe camera when your screen isn't hard locked, only soft locked. In my brief testing that seemed to work as expected.
 
I tried this and you are right, soft lock screen leaves it alone. I am using fingerprint so when it is hard locked it does turn off...