Award flights which cover only one segment is one disappointment within this subject. Once upon a time, when one booked a flight that required 2 or more segments, the entire NPR was covered (and without all these extra fees)
It is my opinion that airlines would like to phase out award flights altogether and are working on the aggravation factor to do it.
Award programs were once used to instill customer loyalty and there were good levels of competition among those airlines. Now the airlines do not care about loyalty and they certainly are not loyal to their customer base.