Return trip flight search with fixed takeoff/departure date and landing/arrival date

Question

When I search for flights from A to B flying on X and returning from B to A on Y, often the date of departure and date of arrival differs due to distance and time of flight. Therefore, lots of results have the +1 on them.

For example, when I say search for flights from A to B on X, it must depart A on date X and reach B on X. Especially, the return leg must arrive on date Y at A, not just depart from B on date Y.

A common reason for this could be fly out on Saturday morning, fly back in on Sunday evening.

I found out that ITA Software's Matrix tool offers this feature, but the fares are not so reliable, and ITA Software's mobile flight-search app OnTheFly will no longer work after December 2017. They recommend using Google Flights, but it doesn't have the feature.

Therefore, I am looking for alternatives; ones that have a mobile-optimized version (on the web or via an app) would be of great help.

I tried looking for this feature in Skyscanner, Kayak, Expedia, Hipmunk, Adioso, Momondo, Kiwi, Skiplagged, Hopper, Orbitz, Priceline, Travelocity, TripAdvisor, Hotwire, but couldn't find a way to filter flights that arrive on a particular day on the return leg. Every flight search engine seems to offer search only by departure date for the return flight.

I want to exclude all the +1 flights in my search results.

Let me know if the feature is available on any flight search engine listed above or missed by me, perhaps hidden somewhere or didn't strike my eye.

Answer 1

A number of flight search engines allow you to filter search results by arrival time. You can use this to filter out all flights that arrive later than you desired date. This is usually a filter you apply after the search, rather than one you set before performing the search. For example, Hipmunk has the time bar at the top:

If I slide that bar to the left, I can filter out all the flights that arrive at my destination on Wednesday or later:

In this case, there aren't any, because such a flight doesn't make any sense within time zones and airline schedules. Indeed, many long-haul international routes are only possible with overnight flights, since that is often preferred by business travelers. But you can adjust the arrival filter as you see fit and watch the results change to show what meets your criteria, if anything. You can use that information to adjust the departure date accordingly: if there are no results that arrive the same day as you depart, you'd have to move the departure date back one day and search again to arrive on your desired date. Or with Hipmunk, just select a three day range for departure date if you want.

If you're using the Hipmunk mobile app, the time filter slider works pretty much the same way:

Kayak has a similar filter on its sidebar, which you can drag to filter flights by arrival time:

Answer 2

I don't know of any such option. When I have such a need, in Expedia I calculate the latest time of departure possible, and select the time slots that work out. For example:

In this HKG-RGN flight, if I leave in the evening I'll arrive the next day. So if I select everything except evening I get this:

Now the +1 flights have disappeared. Works well enough. Not as good as a real "must arrive before XX:YY" solution, I know. The only app I saw that provides this is the the 乗り換え案内 app in Japan for subway itineraries.