Unfortunately Genesis Mining is having technical issues with processing their payments (or at least they did for my check-out attempt).
Thus I am now trying the Hashflare service. They end up asking for your date of birth at Genesis after all, so there is no incremental privacy concern with Hashflare.
Genesis seems very smooth (including welcome emails and 2 Factor Authentication options), up until their checkout. I did as instructed by their vague 'contact technical support' message when my payment failed...and quickly received an email response that that were dealing with large volumes. Perhaps one day I will be able to compare the two services...for now, Hashflare it is!
"Oh Snap" my payment was declined. Looks like Credit Card companies are definitely NOT the way to go if you want to explore the crypto-space!!! No wonder there is huge traction with crypto currency, the old payment types can't effectively achieve security without blanket declines - affecting real customers. I'm now wondering if the Genesis issue is somehow security related (perhaps some 3rd party provider, as my bank said they didn't see the transaction on their end).
Stay tuned....clearly this who ecosystem is maturing fast!