I know they've been having issues over the last couple days. Not sure how much of it is "irritate the users til they leave" or if they're trying to shift some of their server farm somewhere else (private pool perhaps?) ... or maybe they just don't care. I recently sold my GHS to help fund a new S2, but til the pool shrinks a bit I've been on eligius with my s1's.

Also if you're looking to pay with BTC, https://purse.io/ seems to cater exactly to what you're looking for. Haven't used it myself, but it looks promising.