← Back to the flight-booking guide Amsterdam to Bangkok: five booking sites tested
We ran the exact same search on Google Flights, Skyscanner, Kayak and Kiwi.com using the same dates, currency and location, then clicked through to check the cheapest fare was real. Here's what we found.
🛫 Route🇳🇱 Amsterdam → 🇹🇭 Bangkok
📅 TripReturn · 8 → 22 Sep 2026
🔎 Search1 adult · economy · EUR
🌍 Searched fromNetherlands, no VPN
🏆 What the test showed
Every tool found basically the same flights, within about €50 of each other. Skyscanner, Kayak and Momondo were cheapest at €516, a normal protected 1-stop (Air India out, Etihad back), not a self-transfer. Google was €563 on a clean 15-hour connection. Kiwi's €553 looks a touch cheaper still, but it's a reseller on a 47-hour routing, so we've placed it last. There are nonstop KLM flights too, around €750-761, and you can book those straight with the airline. Prices change constantly, so treat this as a snapshot, not a permanent ranking.
Booking sites compared
Ranked by the cheapest protected connection, the safest fare to book. The badge under each tool shows how you book with it. Every term is explained under the table.
Protected connection
All legs on one ticket, so the airline rebooks you free if a connection is missed. The safest fare to book.
Self-transfer
Separate tickets you stitch together (the tool's own label, not ours). Often cheaper, but a missed leg is on you unless a guarantee covers it.
Comparison vs reseller
A comparison site shows the fares and sends you to the airline or an agency to pay. A reseller like Kiwi.com takes your payment itself and adds its own fees, so it usually costs a little more.
Why the prices differ: they all list third-party agencies (you'll spot Trip.com and Kiwi in Google's own booking options too), so it isn't about who shows agencies. The difference is in the fares they build. Skyscanner and Kayak stitched together the cheap mixed-airline ticket (Air India out, Etihad back) that hit €516, while Google stuck to cleaner single-airline itineraries, so its cheapest was €563 but its routing was far better. Skyscanner also has the widest low-cost-carrier coverage.
A cheaper agency price isn't always the better deal. When we searched again the prices held, but a third party can still raise the fare, or even cancel it, before you've paid. Some show the price without a checked bag, or add a surcharge for certain payment methods, so the number you click isn't always the number you pay. On Skyscanner you can see each agency's rating: if it's low, it's often worth a few euro more for a better-rated one, or better still, booking straight with the airline.
Kayak and Momondo are owned by the same company and, as expected, returned the same fares; we list both because people search for each. Kiwi.com is essentially a third-party reseller: it showed the same flights, but priced highest on the clean nonstop (€808) and its cheapest 1-stop is a 47-hour routing, so despite a headline €10 under Google we've ranked it last. A dash in the self-transfer column means no self-transfer was cheaper than that tool's protected fare. Prices are live and drift by the hour, so read the pattern, not the exact euro.
1
Every tool found the same flights.
On our Bali test, every tool's cheapest option was a risky self-transfer. Bangkok flipped that. It's a busy route with lots of airlines flying through Gulf and Indian hubs, so the cheapest fares were ordinary protected 1-stops around €516, and even Kiwi.com, which we'd flagged as the self-transfer specialist, showed the very same nonstop and 1-stops here. So "self-transfers are always cheapest" isn't a rule, it depends on the route. Kiwi's headline €553 slips just under Google's €563, but it's a reseller on a 47-hour routing, while Google's is a clean 15-hour connection, so we've placed Kiwi last. Cheaper isn't better.
🖱️ We clicked through to check it books
A cheap price only counts if it survives the click, so we followed Skyscanner's €516 fare all the way to the booking page. The good news: it was really there, at €516, on BudgetAir (rated 3.9/5). A better-rated agency, Trip.com, was €526, ten euro more. So the price held.
The catch wasn't the price, it was the routing. The €516 fare comes with a 4-hour layover in Delhi on the way out, and an 18h 55m layover in Abu Dhabi on the way back, about 32 hours to get home. It's a real fare, but it buys you a very long trip on a budget agency's ticket.
2
Nonstop costs about €240 more, and saves you 20 hours.
KLM flies Amsterdam to Bangkok nonstop in 11h 15m. Skyscanner had it for €750 through an agency, and Google Flights sends you straight to KLM for €761, so booking direct with the airline costs only about €11 more. The cheapest €516 fare gets you there too, but with long layovers each way. That's the real trade-off on this route: not which tool is cheapest, but whether the nonstop is worth the extra ~€240.
Pay €516
- Booked through a budget agency
- 4h + 18h 55m layovers
- ~32 hours to get home
vs
Pay €750
- KLM nonstop
- 11h 15m each way
- Book direct with KLM (~€761)
🧳 Don't forget the checked bag
The cheapest fare is often a stripped "Light" or "Basic" ticket with only a cabin bag and no checked luggage. It's easy to assume this only applies to low-cost airlines, but it doesn't. KLM sells a Light fare on this route with no checked bag, and the cheap agency fares often strip it out too.
Adding a checked bag to a long-haul ticket costs roughly €30 to €70 each way, sometimes more. On a €516 fare, a €120 round-trip bag fee closes most of the gap to the nonstop. Add your bag before you compare prices, and check what the cheap fare actually includes.
It cuts the other way too, so check the nonstops as well: some carriers, like EVA Air, include a checked bag even on the base fare. A slightly pricier nonstop that already has a bag can work out cheaper than a "cheap" fare you then have to add one to.
How we'd book a route like this
- 1
Start on Google Flights to see the options clearly and watch the price.
- 2
Check Skyscanner or Kayak to see if the exact same flight is cheaper elsewhere, and look at the layovers before you get excited.
- 3
Book direct with the airline unless the saving is large. On this route, we'd seriously weigh the nonstop.
How we tested. One route, one sitting, on 7 Jul 2026. Amsterdam (AMS) to Bangkok (BKK), return 8 → 22 Sep 2026, 1 adult in economy, currency set to EUR on every tool, searched from a Netherlands connection with no VPN. We ran all four searches within about 15 minutes of each other to keep the comparison as fair as possible, noted the cheapest fare each tool showed in each category, and clicked through to the cheapest fare's booking page to check it was actually available at that price. Checked-bag rules come from the airlines' own published fare conditions. This is one snapshot; prices change constantly, so treat the figures as a point-in-time reading.
