A lawyer used the Australian law and Jetstar's promotions to his advantage.

Tyrone Barugh from Wellington found a loophole in the airlines' "Return for Free" deals and is now taking Jetstar to the Disputes Tribunal after booking 58 separate Sydney-Auckland flights at $0 per the promotion, according to Stuff Travel.

He first booked a promotional flight from Auckland to Sydney at NZ$285 (~$171) in March 2020, then canceled it in return for a credit voucher. He then used it to book a return flight under the same promotion before canceling it.

He then repeated the process 57 times. As a result, he was left with over 50 flights he paid $0 for.

Barugh is now claiming NZ$3,540 (~$2,126) in passenger movement charges he said he is to be paid under section 10 of Australia's Passenger Movement Collection Act.

In the second clause of the Act, it says, "Where an arrangement under subsection (claims for refunds, the allowance or payment of refunds and the recovery of refunds paid incorrectly), applies to a person who departs from Australia for another country, the person shall, for the purposes of this Act, be deemed to have paid any charge payable in respect of that departure."

"F**k yeah, I did, and what. Nothing unlawful about booking 58 separate SYD-AKL $0 flights. Now asking @Jetstar_NZ to refund the taxes, but they're having a sook," he tweeted.

"Jetstar lawyer had a whinge on the phone that I'm not coming with clean hands. Uh, but I'm not asking for anything in equity, just asking [tribunal] to make Jetstar pay me what's mine by virtue of the deeming provision in section 10 (2) of the Passenger Movement Charge Collection Act," he said in a follow-up tweet.

Meanwhile, he told Stuff Travel, "I think that there was a real curiosity about how Jetstar would handle this... I also thought that there would be a reasonable prospect of $3500 of passenger movement charge refunded to me."

His case appeared before the Tribunal on Thursday. At the time, Jetstar reportedly tried to bring a lawyer, which was not allowed, so the hearing was not able to push through.

"Even if I lose, I'm f***in' proud of this effort," he tweeted alongside the numbers of his booked flights.