I am really excited to test the new Cursor Grok 4.6 model! I noticed that I have a promotional balance dedicated to this model, but I’ve encountered a logic issue that I’d like to clarify.
Currently, when I use Grok 4.6, the system seems to deduct from my Monthly Fast Requests (subscription) first, rather than using the promotional balance. My technical questions are:
Is it possible to have an option to “Consume Promotional Credits First” when using specific models like Grok 4.6?
I want to perform an extensive “stress test” on Grok 4.6 without depleting my standard monthly allowance for other models (like Claude). What is the recommended workflow to achieve this?
I believe being able to choose the credit source would allow us to provide better feedback on the new models without affecting our regular daily workflow.
Thanks for the amazing tool!
The Grok 4.6 promotional credit is designed as extra runway on top of your plan rather than a replacement for it: your plan’s included monthly usage is always used first, and once that runs out, Grok 4.6 requests automatically draw from the promotional credit instead of stopping or incurring extra charges.
There’s currently no setting to flip that order, but I’ve passed your suggestion along to the team.
I just wanted to put in another vote for this. I came to the forum in search of how to use these credits and was disappointed when I discovered the way this works. In addition to what @1438998005 said, here is my issue with this.
My billing cycle renews on the 19th of each month. I try to balance my usage out across the month so I don’t run out. This particular promotion ends half way through my billing cycle. If I wanted to take advantage of this, I’d basically have to use all my normal requests and then try to use up the extra $100 before the promotional window ends, at which point I’d be completely out of my allotted Cursor model requests for a couple weeks until my billing cycle renews (unless I paid for additional of course). That would disrupt my flow.
If my billing cycle ran from the beginning of the month, then the way it works today wouldn’t be an issue and I’d just spend a bit more requests at the beginning of the month. But as it stands, the current way means myself (and anyone else who has a mid-month billing cycle) can’t take advantage of this promotion as much as others who have a beginning of the month billing cycle could.
An alternative way to consider approaching this would be to make it so that these types of promotions have dynamic ending dates based on the billing cycle. That comes with some other challenges though because then how do you make it fair for everyone to have it for the same length of time? You’d have to have it start with a dynamic date too. So that’s a bit more challenging I think. Though it would balance out the promotion usage probably (perhaps spread out the heavy load due to increased usage). Pros and cons.
Just food for thought either way. Love Cursor and all you guys are doing. Keep it up!
hi. i would like to ask i got 100$ credits but my plan got expired i have cancelled it a while ago however now when i try to use the credits the models are locked and require active subscription can i use them without subscription
The promotional credit adds extra Grok 4.6 usage on top of your plan rather than replacing it, so once your subscription ends, most of the Grok 4.6 model options are locked.
Depending on your account, you may still see a Grok 4.6 (Medium) option in the model picker on the free plan, and the credit can fund usage there, but the full set of Grok 4.6 models requires an active subscription.
If you’d like to make full use of the credit, resubscribing before the expiry date shown on your dashboard will unlock the models, and the credit kicks in automatically once your plan’s included usage runs out.
Adding another critical issue caused by this exact deduction logic: it leads to unexpected cash charges via On-Demand billing.
Recently, I experienced a severe billing conflict due to this:
I had active promotional credits visible on my dashboard, so I reasonably assumed extra usage would be covered.
Because the system forces the monthly plan quota to deplete first, once my included pool was exhausted, the system immediately triggered On-Demand charges ($20) on other models instead of utilizing the promotional credit.
When I contacted support (Ticket: T-F18109), they claimed promotional credits are supposed to apply first, completely contradicting @Colin’s confirmation here that plan usage is always consumed first.
This creates a serious dark pattern / trap:
Users cannot isolate promotional testing from their primary subscription quota.
Once the subscription quota is silently drained by testing, any subsequent standard work triggers real credit card / on-demand invoices while promotional balances sit completely unused.
The dashboard displays the credit balance prominently, but fails to clearly warn users about the strict model allowlists and deduction priorities before cash charges kick in.
At a minimum, Cursor needs to:
Allow users to toggle “Use Promotional Credits First”.
Hard-block or explicitly warn before On-Demand billing triggers when an account still holds an active credit balance.
Align support team communication with the actual billing backend logic.
This design directly penalizes users who actively participate in testing new models. Hope the team prioritizes a fix for this soon.
