After trying for 4 days, I finally talked to an AP agent after 1hour hold and another 1.5 hr to ticket the following itinerary
YTZ-YUL-IST-ASB (AC/TK), ALA-IST-CAI-YYZ (TK/MS) with $89 in taxes/fees. I guess worth it in the end

According to the agent, it appears she still had access to both systems to check availability. She could only see what I see on AP.com using the new system and but she was able to confirm the X spaces manually on the old system.
Eventually, she had to ticket it with the support and manual tax calculation - not sure which system she used tho.