I am getting pretty frustrated with Google Flights and AC's booking tools for admittedly non-standard flights. I am trying to figure out how to use ITA Matrix.

I am looking at a YYC - LHR (16 day stopover) - JNB (10 day stopover) - FRA (2 day stopover) - YWG (21 day stopover) - YYC trip next fall / autumn. YYC - LHR and FRA - YWG - YYC would be on AC metal and LHR - JNB - FRA would be on Lufthansa group metal in an ideal world.

Air Canada's booking tool gives me no options on any metal..

Google flights gives me fares of $13,166 or $14,415 depending on some legs being on Swiss versus Lufthansa. In both cases, they tell me that I have to book with Lufthansa by phone or some sort of OTA for marginally less money. I would obviously prefer an AC ticket to a Lufthansa ticket and I don't want to book with an OTA.

ITA Matrix gives me a fare of $14,415 that is theoretically bookable with Air Canada but the fare class is C which is much more expensive than D, Z or P fares. Despite the new SQC regime, I do not want to unnecessarily throw money out of the window if I can avoid it.

I could book YYC-LHR-FRA-YWG-YYC on an AC ticket on the AC site and FRA-JNB-FRA on a LH ticket on the LH site for similar money but I would lose out on 21,000 SQC and a protected connection which is not ideal. It would give me similar SQCs to calling in to Lufthansa rather than bifurcating the trip.

I have two questions. Is there a way to force ITA Matrix to search for D, Z and P fares on an AC bookable ticket? If I have all of the details from ITA Matrix, are Air Canada agents able to book the flights that ITA Matrix throws out if I provide them with all the details even though their booking engine doesn't throw out the fare?

I know that it is not in AC's DNA to make life less difficult for customers nor is it logical for Lufthansa to structure and implement the JV to make it easy for AC customers to book reasonably priced flights on a combination of AC and LH group metal but *A is really not an alliance at all. It is more of a marketing gimmick at best and disingenuous at worst.

Any help would be appreciated.

Edit to add : Thanks for the move mods. I thought that there might be an existing thread but the FT search tool behaves like it was designed by AC's IT department and I couldn't find an existing thread which might have been a resource for me to use to find an answer on my own. I will now look at the entire thread and see if I can find an answer.