Hopefully an altercation is not the only way to get Jetstar’s attention, but it may be.

Our experience is as follows – after booking a flight to Christchurch to see the Ron Mueck exhibition with members of an art group, a later visit to an orthopaedic surgeon resulted in a fixture at Ascot hospital for a total knee replacement for the same dates. Yes, the knee had been dodgy for some time, but had not stopped other outings in previous weeks and months, like trips to the Sydney Biennale, to Melbourne and Hawke’s Bay.

On recognising the clash of the dates for the Jetstar trip to Christchurch and the knee op, the appropriate action was to contact both the airline and the insurer of the flight insurance.

While a call to the insurer was, if not satisfactory, at least a sense of "communicating”, Jetstar proved impossible. Eventually, after a 50-minute wait on their 0800 line to explain the flight could not be taken, the advice was to explain by fax the reason for a fare refund. This was done a full month before the scheduled flight, and followed up with a second fax.

Has there been any response from Jetstar? No, that’s if you don’t register the countless "no-reply” emails and text message reminders of the flight it was no longer possible to take.

Person-to-person contact with Jetstar is nigh impossible it seems, unless you’re a shock jock at the airport.

It is appreciated that Jetstar is a no-frills business model, but that does not excuse it being such a black hole when it comes to trying to talk about legitimate refunds.

Perhaps the only way to address this is to take the matter/issue directly to the checkout desk, with boxing gloves in hand!