Unless you're the smartest person alive, you are going to get stuck on a clue or two. What do you consider as cheating? Is asking someone else cheating, is looking it up cheating? I'm sure for official tournaments and stuff it's defined, but I'm just wondering about your personal thoughts.
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In American crosswords with every letter doubled, it's the editor's fault if there is a bad crossing and both clues for the same letter are horrid. Find a route, make your best guess, and penalize yourself if it doesn't match the answer. I sometimes allow myself lookups if I suspect a particular word and the lookup is likely to quickly validate or invalidate my guess. If you ask the AI basically the same thing as you're being asked, that's cheating and shouldn't be used if you care about the publisher.
Tournament crosswords are designed so that nobody can complain they're not fair. However, what passes for English-language crosswords in many cases has little or no editing standard and so solution credit should depend on your own sliding scale of justice. If the publisher is trustworthy, hold yourself to the highest standard, and you'll be thankful when the answer comes to you in the shower over the weekend.
c/Enigmas needs members.
It's funny you bring that up. Because when I get stuck I'll try to look it up as vaguely as possible. And I like to think I'm still having to intuit an answer from that, so I tell myself I'm not cheating but I am. I'll subscribe but despite liking them I'm pretty middling on puzzle skills
Yes, I agree with vague lookups. But if the author is appealing to a narrow knowledge base I'm not into, I give myself more leeway, it's very fluid.