As the pound hit the hallowed two-dollar mark last week (with the tourist dollar selling at 1.95 to the pound), the USA confirmed its position as this year’s bargain destination, with travel agents reporting a 33% increase in bookings.

Cathy Keefe, of the Travel Industry Association of America, told The Sunday Times that hotels in Florida, New York and California — America’s top three destinations — were reporting a surge in bookings since the pound hit a 26-year high. “We really need British tourists right now,” she said, “and right now is a great time for Brits to be visiting.”

While the strong pound is bad news for inbound tourism to Britain, it means that airlines will be forced to slash prices to sell the seats American tourists can’t afford, raising the prospect of a summer price war on transatlantic routes.

“There is strong demand for US flights at the moment, especially since the pound broke through the two-dollar ceiling,” said BA, “but sales of seats in the other direction have been slow.”

The tumbling dollar promises an extended boom time for bargain-hunters. A Mulberry Roxanne handbag costs £595 in London, but in New York it costs £495; and designer jeans by Rock & Republic, which cost £241 in Manchester, are just £102 in Manhattan. An 80GB iPod Video costs £215 at Dixons, but in the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue it’s just £174; and a pair of Converse sneakers costing £39.99 in Camden is just £19.99 in Chicago.

Shoppers should be aware, though, that duty and Vat are payable on goods bought overseas, and customs inspectors are trained to spot the bulging bags of returning shoppers. You can bring home up to £145 worth of goods such as clothing and electronics duty-free, but purchases over that value will attract Vat at 17.5% and duty ranging from 2% for your iPod to 12% on those jeans.

And while package prices — still the cheapest way to see the USA — aren’t likely to fall any further while demand remains high, the cost of holiday living in America has plummeted. A Big Mac meal costs £3.49 in Liverpool and just £2.24 in Los Angeles, and Gordon Ramsay’s Menu Prestige, which will set you back £110 for seven courses in Chelsea, costs £60 on New York’s West 54th Street (and you get an extra course).

A cinema ticket costs £5.48 in Hollywood, compared with £12.50 in London’s Leicester Square, but there are some anomalies in the transatlantic bonanza. A three-day family ticket for the Walt Disney World resort in Orlando costs £352, while the Paris equivalent is only £324; and tickets for Monty Python’s Spamalot are on sale at identical prices in London and New York. Car hire is also unaffected by the exchange rate: a telephone call to the Hertz office in Miami gained a saving of just £2.25 on an internet quote from www.holidayautos.com , although petrol remains ludicrously cheap at just £1.43 a gallon (38p per litre).

Best news of all is that there’s no rush to cross the pond. “It could still fall further,” said Howard Archer, chief economist at analyst Global Insight, “If the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates, as we suspect it might, then we could easily see sterling climb to $2.10 or more.” Wall Street currency analyst Joel Feinstein agreed. “This isn’t a short-term spike,” he said. “I’m confident that the pound is going to stay above two dollars for the rest of the summer and probably until the end of the year.”