Is pay-what-you-want a viable hotel pricing strategy?

My fiancée and I are taking a trip to Halifax this summer. I booked a mystery hotel online using Priceline's name-your-own-price function, and ended up with the Westin Nova Scotian.

In researching the hotel, I discovered that they ran a very interesting promotion over spring break, where they set aside 60 rooms for guests to pay what they wanted. Pay-what-you-want is a unique (if not gimmicky) pricing strategy that seems to have been popping up quite a bit in recent years, perhaps thanks to Radiohead's use of the strategy to sell their album In Rainbows.

Cross-continent drive

Last month, I drove from Hamilton, Ontario to Victoria, British Columbia via the United States. It was an interesting four-and-a-half day trip, but my back was sore from all the time spent driving by the end of it.

I got to see a lot of neat small towns along the way. The riverside town of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, made a peaceful lunch stop; the Grand Avenue Cafe serves a mean vegetarian lasagna.