I was just trying to make a booking and accidentally provided a return date earlier than the departing date. I found that the departing date had reset to null. I tried it on Lufthansa. Later when I tried it on Emirates and Air New Zealand they also behaved similarly. However, now I am wondering is it not possible to book airline tickets with return date earlier than the departing date. Assume that I am leaving Auckland at around 1AM and the return from Honolulu is around 19:00 the previous evening. How do I get that booking done as a single ticket? Or are there special
flights which operate across the International Date Line and it is possible to make these types of booking only on those airlines?
EDIT
Ok, I did a search on United website and found out these combinations:
Tokyo (HND) to SFO Departure: 00:30 (Aug 3rd) Arrival: 18:00 (Aug 2nd)
SFO to HND Departure: 19:50 (Aug 2nd) Arrival: 22:35 (Aug 3rd)
All departure and arrival times are local times. But it did not allow me to book as a single ticket.
This scenario might not be realistic. But if i am traveller using the web interface for booking a multi-city trip, say from Tokyo to San Francisco and then on the same day to Orlando or something of that sort. Then the system would fail right?