Sara Baeur, a chocolatier from Montana, USA, booked a place to stay in Northern Morocco for next year’s total solar eclipse, only to be contacted by the host who had an unwelcome message for her
Sara Bauer booked a place in Morocco for August next year(Image: Supplied)
A family was told they’d be locked out of a rental home if they turned up, despite paying £3,400 for the property.
Solar eclipse enthusiast Sara Bauer booked a place to stay in the Moroccan resort of Marwan for the first week of August 2027, desperate to see the astrological phenomenon from the best possible spot. The northern seaside town is a perfect place to catch the eclipse, which includes an incredible eight minutes of totality – about three times longer than this summer’s.
The Montana woman booked the beachfront property and started looking forward to what’s been dubbed ‘the eclipse of the century’. However, she claims she became alarmed after receiving a message from the host, demanding that she cancel the booking. If she didn’t, she was told her family would be locked out of the home, she alleges.
After Sara gave in and cancelled the booking, she saw the same property relisted for six times the price, she claims.
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After she was first contacted by the host, the chocolatier, who runs Chocolate Eclipse, told the Mirror: “The host of my Airbnb in Morocco is demanding that I cancel my reservation. He says he will be penalised badly if he cancels it. He said he’s selling the place before next year and didn’t realise at first that I had booked so far out. He says he will be penalised if he does the cancellation, but will if I refuse to cancel.”
Sara added: “He had said I wouldn’t have access even if I didn’t cancel.”
Concerned that she’d fly all the way to Morocco to find a locked house, Sara “caved” and accepted the cancellation request. The host told her that the property was being removed from the rental market for renovations. However, Sara later found the same property listed for the same week for £20,400 – six times more than she paid.
After being contacted by the Mirror, Airbnb deactivated the listing and penalised the host. An Airbnb spokesperson said: “Issues of this nature are rare, and where we determine misuse of our cancellation policy, hosts not only lose the income from the booking, but face consequences we apply, including fees of up to 50% of the booking cost, a block on rebooking their listing for the same dates, impact on search ranking and where warranted, suspension or deactivation of the account. Our initial handling of this report fell short of the standards we expect, and feedback will be provided to the agents. We have deactivated the listing, and have applied the relevant penalties in line with our policies on host cancellation. The guest has been offered rebooking support and a coupon as a gesture of goodwill, which has been positively received.”
Hosts who cancel Airbnb stays without a legitimate reason face a 50% fee on the reservation cost, calendar blocks that prevent them from accepting reservations during the affected dates, and potential consequences for their Superhost status and listing search ranking. Airbnb says cancellation rates have dropped 30% year over year since more deterrents were introduced in July 2023.
The huge demand for places to stay along the path of totality during next year’s solar eclipse has driven prices up sharply. Some property owners have resorted to canceling reservations in a bid to make hay while the sun shines.