Question 1

How do you find a meeting time that works across multiple timezones and DST?

Accepted Answer

Convert all participants' availability to UTC first, then find the intersection. UTC is timezone-agnostic and DST-agnostic — it never changes. Each participant's local availability is converted to UTC based on their timezone offset *at the specific date in question* (accounting for whether DST is active on that date). The overlapping UTC window is then displayed in each person's local time.

Question 2

Why does timezone scheduling fail even when using 'correct' timezones?

Accepted Answer

Because DST offset changes happen on different dates in different countries. If Alice in New York and Bob in London both select '3pm local time' as available, their UTC overlap shifts by 1 hour during the 2-week gap when one country has changed clocks and the other hasn't. Only true UTC-based calculation prevents this error.

Question 3

What's the best free tool for finding group availability across timezones?

Accepted Answer

This calculator handles the timezone-safe overlap calculation. For ongoing scheduling, tools like World Time Buddy and Every Time Zone provide good visual overlaps. For formal meetings, Calendly and Doodle poll functionality covers most use cases — but none of them solve DST transition gaps as explicitly as manual UTC-based calculation.

True-Overlap Trip Scheduler

Team Availability