Question:hard

DIRECTIONS for questions 78 to 81: Read the data below and choose the correct option for the questions that follow.

Queen Airlines offers the following Privilege programme: there are 5 membership tiers, each with its own set of enhanced tier-specific benefits. New members join at the Blue tier, then upgrade to Blue Plus, which adds the benefit of Tele check-in. The programme also has three elite tiers, Silver, Gold and Platinum. The 6-month fast-track upgrade and the 12-month standard upgrade system work in parallel: whenever a passenger meets the condition for the next tier, either in terms of the number of flights taken in the stipulated period or in terms of accumulated Queen-Miles, in either of the two systems, the passenger is automatically upgraded to the next tier. The 6-month system looks at a rolling 6-month period, and the 12-month system looks at a rolling 12-month period. If conditions for more than one upgrade are met at the same time, the passenger is given the higher of the two tiers.

Tier Upgrade6-month Fast Track Upgrade System
(Cumulative flights / Cumulative Queen-Miles)		12-month Standard Upgrade System
(Cumulative flights / Cumulative Queen-Miles)
Blue to Blue Plus3 / 3,000Not Applicable
Blue Plus to SilverNot Applicable5 / 12,500
Silver to Gold5 / 12,50010 / 20,000
Gold to Platinum10 / 20,00020 / 30,000

Benefits and Privileges

BlueBlue PlusSilverGoldPlatinum
Tele Check-in✓✓✓✓
Additional baggage allowance10 kgs20 kgs35 kgs
Confirmed upgrade vouchers135
Guaranteed reservations upto 24 hours prior to departure✓✓
Cancellation fees waived on published fares✓

Distances between cities in Queen-miles

DelhiKolkataMumbaiHyderabadBangaloreCoimbatoreGuwahati
Kolkata1461
Mumbai14071987
Hyderabad14991516711
Bangalore20611881998562
Coimbatore240121671265902340
Guwahati195910812746237029323209
Chennai2095167613296883314912718

Mr Kakkar, a newly recruited MBA from a business school, started his career at the start of 2007. His travel plan for 2007 is given below.

DateFromTo
2.1.2007MumbaiHyderabad
8.1.2007HyderabadMumbai
3.2.2007MumbaiDelhi
8.3.2007DelhiGuwahati
20.3.2007GuwahatiKolkata
11.4.2007KolkataGuwahati
30.4.2007GuwahatiChennai
4.7.2007ChennaiGuwahati
20.7.2007GuwahatiKolkata
2.9.2007KolkataHyderabad
11.9.2007HyderabadGuwahati
22.9.2007GuwahatiDelhi
1.10.2007ChennaiBangalore
11.10.2007GuwahatiChennai
4.11.2007ChennaiDelhi
29.11.2007DelhiHyderabad
1.12.2007HyderabadGuwahati
31.12.2007GuwahatiMumbai

The number of complete calendar months, discounting any partial months, for which Mr Kakkar avails the Gold tier membership is:

Show Hint

Find the date Kakkar first becomes Gold and the date he first becomes Platinum, then count only the calendar months that lie fully between them.
Updated On: Jul 13, 2026
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
Show Solution

The Correct Option is A

Solution and Explanation

To find how long Kakkar stays at Gold, we need two dates: when he enters Gold and when he leaves it for Platinum, then count the whole months strictly in between.

He enters Gold on 20 March 2007, since his 5th flight clears both the Silver and Gold conditions at once (shown fully in question 78's solution).

To leave Gold he must clear the Gold to Platinum rule: 10 flights or 20,000 miles, on either system. Listing his flights from 11 April 2007 onward and numbering them:

  1. 11 Apr, Kolkata-Guwahati
  2. 30 Apr, Guwahati-Chennai
  3. 4 Jul, Chennai-Guwahati
  4. 20 Jul, Guwahati-Kolkata
  5. 2 Sep, Kolkata-Hyderabad
  6. 11 Sep, Hyderabad-Guwahati
  7. 22 Sep, Guwahati-Delhi
  8. 1 Oct, Chennai-Bangalore
  9. 11 Oct, Guwahati-Chennai
  10. 4 Nov, Chennai-Delhi

The 10th qualifying flight lands on 4 November 2007, meeting the flight-count condition of the Gold-to-Platinum rule (the mileage total is still under 20,000 at this point). So Kakkar becomes Platinum on 4 November 2007, and his time as a Gold member runs from 20 March to 3 November.

Let's summarize:

  • Gold tier: 20 March 2007 to 3 November 2007.
  • Discount the two edge months, March (starts on the 20th) and November (ends on the 3rd), since neither is a full calendar month.
  • What remains whole is April through October, which is 7 months.

So Kakkar holds Gold tier membership for 7 complete calendar months.

Was this answer helpful?
0

Top Questions on Table

Questions Asked in XAT exam

Read the scenario and answer the question:
The upper hinge of a dataset is the median of all the values to the right of the median of the dataset in an ascending arrangement, while the lower hinge of the dataset is the median of all the values to the left of the median of the dataset in the same arrangement.
For example, consider the dataset 4, 3, 2, 6, 4, 2, 7. When arranged in the ascending order, it becomes 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7. The median is 4 (the bold value), and hence the upper hinge is the median of 4, 6, 7, i.e., 6. Similarly, the lower hinge is 2. 
A student has surveyed thirteen of her teachers, and recorded their work experience (in integer years). Two of the values recorded by the student got smudged, and she cannot recall those values. All she remembers is that those two values were unequal, so let us write them as A and B, where A < B. The remaining eleven values, as recorded, are: 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 16, 19, 21, 21, 27, 29. Moreover, the student also remembers the following summary measures, calculated based on all the thirteen values: 
Minimum: 2
Lower Hinge: 6.5 
Median: 12 
Upper Hinge: 21 
Maximum: 29
View Solution
Read the following scenario and answer the questions that follow.
A T20 cricket match consists of two teams playing twenty overs each, numbered 1 to 20. The runs scored in any over is a non-negative integer. The run rate at the end of any over is the average runs scored up to and including that over, i.e., the run rate at the end of the kth over is the average number of runs scored in overs numbered \(1, 2, …, k,\) where \(1 \leq k \leq 20, k\) a positive integer.
The following table indicates the run rate of a team at the end of some of the overs during a T20 cricket match (correct up to 2 decimal places), where \(1 \leq N – 2 < N + 6 \leq 20\), N a positive integer. It is also known that the team did not score less than 6 runs and more than 15 runs in any over.
Over NumberRun Rate
N-28.00
N7.43
N+28.11
N+48.45
N+68.08
View Solution