wifi on Renfe trains - free on every class?

No, it is not.

On the one hand, RENFE has a loyalty card program, called "+RENFE", that offers four tiers -as you can see on its website- which are: +Renfe, +Renfe Plata, +Renfe Oro and +Renfe Premium --think your typical American Express tier program! On the other, RENFE's wifi access is called "Playrenfe" and it's positioned as an entertainment platform with a number of services around it beyond the traditional surfing of the net. It comes in two flavours: Basic and Premium.

The Basic service offers connectivity for ONE device, a meagre 20Mb data transfer and no access to live TV nor to film premieres. It's free for +Renfe and +Renfe Plata holders and, paying 2€, any passenger of the train can purchase access to this level for the duration of the journey -or until you use up the 20Mb! The Premium service is free for +Renfe Oro and +Renfe Premium card holders as well as for any passenger travelling First Class ("Clase Preferente"). Other than this, you can purchase access to this level for 4€. The Premium level offers connectivity for up to 3 devices, 100Mb data and access to all contents of the platform.

Playrenfe hasn't been long on the market, but my experience with this service is rather poor so far. Besides having a ridiculous low data allowance --uploading a picture taken with your phone camera to Facebook already uses 3-4 Mb!- I've often experienced large fluctuations in the connection speed during the journeys. My opinion is that this service is currently good for basic Internet stuff: whatsapp, checking email, reading the paper... but IMHO it falls short of the promise of an "entertainment platform". I get that it's not easy to provide stable Internet connectivity to a horse running at 250mph, maybe the quality of the service will pick up in the future... let's hope so.

Enjoy!

Thanks Enric.
I have been struggling through those reverted to Spanish pages on the 'english' Renfe site and did seem to get most of those details. I wonder if you can clarify, then the +Renfe card is just a loyalty card, like getting a card for a hotel chain?....not a credit card?

I also appreciate the feedback on the calibre of the wifi. I would want to use it for researching next city plans, so accessing websites on my tablet. But if images take that long to load, (as it wouldn't be via a mobile website necessarily) then it might be too frustrating to be worth it. I don't need the 'entertainment' for a 3 hour or less trip.

Yep it's just a loyalty card, not a credit card.

Well, it's not that takes forever to load, for surfing websites -which eat relatively little bandwidth- it's all right... most of the time anyway.