My husband and I and our 2 children (14 and 11) are all silver skywards / sky surfers.

On a recent trip without the kids my husband and I used most of our miles and do not have sufficient for any upgrades. However the children have around 40k miles each.

After Emirates bumped us last week from our checked in, boarding passes printed, seats in row 8, to back in row 31, I asked for an upgrade of 2 seats from economy to business. I was told that the children cannot upgrade without us sitting with them, and as we didn't have enough miles (and no chance of a comp upgrade) they couldn't move them either.

So it seems to me that the children's miles are effectively useless - unless we pay for our business fares and then upgrade the children from economy, then they cannot use them for anything.

It is maddening that Emirates are happy to charge us full fare for 12 year olds, are happy for them to be in paid business seats (which is the reason they have so many miles) - but then tell us children can't fly business class without their parents if you try to upgrade them. It's not as if they are small children - they don't even get child fares!

So what do we do with the skysurfer miles?