Boris Johnson has been urged to save cheap holidays for less well-off families and cut the costs of Coronavirus tests needed for travel.
As it stands, suppliers listed by the Foreign Office are offering PCR tests from around £20 to £270, with postal tests averaging at around £100.
Travellers must take a PCR test within two days of arrival in the UK when coming from green and amber list countries.
Non-vaccinated holidaymakers must take a second test within eight days of their arrival.
Tory MPs are urging the government to ditch pricey PCRs for the less accurate, but cheaper and quicker lateral flow tests.
Huw Merriman, Tory chairman of the transport committee, said on Friday: "Long suspected that expensive PCR tests for travel are an unnecessary rip-off.
"Shocking new Test and Trace NHS data backs this up.
"Of all the PCR tests from arriving passengers that came back positive in the three week period from 1st July, only 5 per cent were then genome sequenced."
Mr Merriman also called for lateral flow tests to be used "for all testing" so only those who test positive will be required to have the "more expensive PCR test and sequencing".
Senior Tory backbencher Sir Roger Gale told The Independent our testing regime is leaving our economy "lagging behind France and Germany".
He said: "It is the requirement for a test within two days of return that pushes prices up because PCR tests are far more expensive in the UK than elsewhere in Europe."
ABTA, the body which represents travel agents and tour operators, is pushing the Government to scrap VAT.
A spokeswoman said: “Back in April, when the Government announced the plan for restarting international travel, it recognised that testing was expensive and pledged to look at the costs.
"Since then no further action has taken place, meaning travellers face larger costs for tests.“The Government must work to bring down costs by taking simple steps such as eliminating VAT.”
Willie Walsh, the director-general of Iata, and former chief executive of British Airways, told The Times: “The UK is the poster child for governments failing to adequately manage testing.
"At best it is expensive, at worst extortionate. And in either case, it is a scandal that the government is charging VAT.”
Health Secretary Sajid Javid said suggested the government will act against firms adding "unnecessary costs" to tests.
He said: "It is not right if some families experience yet further disruption unnecessarily because of practices in the market for private travel tests."
It comes as the PM threatened to demote Rishi Sunak after he called for travel restrictions to be eased.
Last week the Chancellor wrote to the PM called for restrictions to be eased because they were damaging the economy.
At 4am today, restrictions changed leaving dozens stranded in Mexico which has been put on the red list.
Some holidaymakers were even en route where the changed was announced.
The number of coronavirus patients in hospital in England has dropped for the fourth day in a row, data shows.
And nearly three quarters of the adult population have been doubly vaccinated and almost nine in ten have received at least one jab.
