European data roaming charges could have cost Brits up to £80 million this summer, according to data from Virgin Media O2.

Across the months of July and August, holidaymakers were probably charged around £8.9 million a week, said the mobile network.

UK mobile providers Vodafone, EE, and Three reintroduced European roaming fees earlier this year.

In May, Three introduced a charge of £2 a day for customers using data roaming in the EU.

Virgin Media O2 said the figures come from new anonymised, aggregated movement data collected by O2 Motion, which uses connections to mobile masts to gain insight into crowd movement trends.

The data also revealed that volumes to ten top destinations in July and August more than tripled compared to last summer.

The company says that travellers to the top five countries - Spain, France, Greece, Italy and Portugal - could have faced extra costs of up to £64 million across a nine-week period.

“As people continue to feel the impact of the cost-of-living crisis, it’s alarming to see just how much European roaming charges have cost this summer,” said Gareth Turpin, chief commercial officer at Virgin Media O2.

He said the company was proud to be the only major mobile network not to bring back roaming fees in the region.

British holidaymakers in Spain over the summer were charged around £26 million, according to the data, while travellers to France could have faced fees of up to £14.8 million.

In Greece, tourists spent roughly £9.6 million on data roaming, said Virgin Media O2.

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