We were up until after 2 am on the phone trying to sort out the remaining details of the changes to our trip.

The Marriott Ambassador agent put in cases for the return of the nightly upgrade awards pulled for our two nights in Bangkok (which we were able to cancel without penalty) and for a request to cancel the third night in Phuket without repricing the whole reservation. We then booked another night for Phuket on the front end of that reservation.

The rate at the Marriott Merlin Beach has more than doubled since we made our reservation--I'd guess that this is both due to Eid vacationers and the "White Lotus effect." We thought about staying elsewhere for the first night, but it didn't seem worth it.

The other surprising thing was that, when calling Thai Airways to cancel our BKK-HKT flight, the agent told me that it could take up to 180 days to process the refund! Perhaps I would have been better off using the tickets' value for KUL-BKK-HKT, but I wanted a direct flight.

We ordered room service to accompany these calls; the satay was a lot better than the Hainanese chicken.