I called and set all my citi card cash advance line to be zero to avoid unexpected cash advance treatment. I tried to fund chase checking account using ciiti card and got rejected.
I tried to transfer fund from citi card to my perkstreet checking account, which perkstreet claims to treat as purchase with 2.5% fee. the transfer failed as well.
it seems citi treats all the funding as cash adance now. there is no way to use this method to meet the minimum purchase requirements for AA cards.