FAMILIES face an unprecedented squeeze on their finances this half-term as the soaring cost of petrol and flights coincides with one of the biggest shake-ups of rail fares for more than a decade.

Oil eased off last Thursday’s record high of $135.09 at the end of the week, closing on Friday at $130.01, but it will have come too late for many families.

Unleaded petrol hit an average of 114p a litre last week against 96.4p a year ago, according to the AA. The typical family therefore pays almost £9 more every time they fill their tank, and the AA estimates that drivers will pay an extra £110m in fuel over the bank holiday weekend compared with a year ago.

British Airways had more bad news last week when it declared an end to the era of cheap flights, while train operators have started to scrap cheap saver tickets on certain routes, in effect tripling the cost.

A family travelling to London from Rhyl, North Wales, can no longer take advantage of cheap saver returns, which cost £65.70, if they want to arrive before 10.30am. Instead passengers would need to pay £202 for a standard open return to travel early.

Passengers travelling from Oakham, Rutland, to Birmingham for a day’s shopping would have to travel before 9.30am to take advantage of cheap saver rates of £11.30. Outside this time it would now cost £26.

Gerry Doherty, leader of the TSSA transport union, said: “We always feared that so-called simpler fares would be used as an excuse to sneak through higher fares, and this in fact has happened.”

And, to add insult to injury, Alliance & Leicester last week hiked its charge for using its card abroad by 0.20 points to 2.95% — just in time for the holidays. Here we offer some tips on beating the holiday rip-offs.

Save £200 on your annual petrol bill

With clever use of websites and cards, you could save hundreds of pounds on your annual fuel bill. First find the cheapest petrol in your area, using petrolprices.com. This website will give you the rates on all forecourts within your area. Asda is consistently the cheapest. An Asda in Gateshead was charging 107.9p a litre, but a mile and a half down the road, the rates were 114.9p. With a 50-litre tank, you would save £3.50 at Asda.

You could make further savings by using an Asda credit card which offers an additional 2p off each litre, bringing your total saving to £4.50. Over the course of a year, you would save £234 assuming the difference between the stations remained the same and you filled up once a week.

Meanwhile, Tesco offers one Clubcard point for each £1 spent at a Tesco forecourt. These points are worth 1p so if you bought £50 worth of petrol you could save 50p.