Question

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 Upgrade	6-month Fast Track Upgrade System (Cumulative flights / Cumulative Queen-Miles)	12-month Standard Upgrade System (Cumulative flights / Cumulative Queen-Miles)
Blue to Blue Plus	3 / 3,000	Not Applicable
Blue Plus to Silver	Not Applicable	5 / 12,500
Silver to Gold	5 / 12,500	10 / 20,000
Gold to Platinum	10 / 20,000	20 / 30,000

Benefits and Privileges

	Blue	Blue Plus	Silver	Gold	Platinum
Tele Check-in		✓	✓	✓	✓
Additional baggage allowance			10 kgs	20 kgs	35 kgs
Confirmed upgrade vouchers			1	3	5
Guaranteed reservations upto 24 hours prior to departure				✓	✓
Cancellation fees waived on published fares					✓

Distances between cities in Queen-miles

	Delhi	Kolkata	Mumbai	Hyderabad	Bangalore	Coimbatore	Guwahati
Kolkata	1461
Mumbai	1407	1987
Hyderabad	1499	1516	711
Bangalore	2061	1881	998	562
Coimbatore	2401	2167	1265	902	340
Guwahati	1959	1081	2746	2370	2932	3209
Chennai	2095	1676	1329	688	331	491	2718

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.

Date	From	To
2.1.2007	Mumbai	Hyderabad
8.1.2007	Hyderabad	Mumbai
3.2.2007	Mumbai	Delhi
8.3.2007	Delhi	Guwahati
20.3.2007	Guwahati	Kolkata
11.4.2007	Kolkata	Guwahati
30.4.2007	Guwahati	Chennai
4.7.2007	Chennai	Guwahati
20.7.2007	Guwahati	Kolkata
2.9.2007	Kolkata	Hyderabad
11.9.2007	Hyderabad	Guwahati
22.9.2007	Guwahati	Delhi
1.10.2007	Chennai	Bangalore
11.10.2007	Guwahati	Chennai
4.11.2007	Chennai	Delhi
29.11.2007	Delhi	Hyderabad
1.12.2007	Hyderabad	Guwahati
31.12.2007	Guwahati	Mumbai

If 6-month upgrade had not been in operation, then Mr Kakkar would have reached the Gold tier in the month of:

• A. June
• B. July
• C. August
• D. September

Hint:

Turn off the 6-month fast track for Silver to Gold and use only the 12-month standard rule (10 flights or 20,000 miles); the other two upgrade steps are unaffected since each already runs on a single system.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is D

Step 1: See what changes without the 6-month fast track.
If the 6-month fast track did not exist, the only way to move up a tier is the 12-month standard system. Blue to Blue Plus has no 12-month option at all, and Blue Plus to Silver already runs only on the 12-month system, so those two steps happen exactly as before: Blue Plus on 3 February 2007, and Silver on 20 March 2007 (5 flights clears the 12-month "5 flights" rule for Blue Plus to Silver).

Step 2: Apply only the 12-month rule for Silver to Gold.
With the 6-month fast track switched off, Silver to Gold now needs 10 flights or 20,000 Queen-Miles on the 12-month system alone, instead of the easier 5-flight, 6-month route. We track Kakkar's cumulative flights from the start of the year.

Step 3: Count forward to the 10th flight of the year.
2.1 (1), 8.1 (2), 3.2 (3), 8.3 (4), 20.3 (5), 11.4 (6), 30.4 (7), 4.7 (8), 20.7 (9), 2.9 (10, Kolkata-Hyderabad). His 10th flight of the year falls on 2 September 2007, meeting the flight-count condition. His accumulated miles at that point are about 14,983, well below 20,000, so it is the flight count that triggers the change, not the miles.

Final Answer:
Without the 6-month upgrade system, Kakkar would have reached the Gold tier in September 2007.
\[ \boxed{\text{September}} \]