Went to the ticket office, just asked for an exchange (with a fee) of my advanced fare ticket on to a different train (from Sunderland for £36). Was told that the return ticket software was down in all LNER ticket offices and that the nearest ticket office that could help was Sunderland. I said that wasn't acceptable and explained how I'd bought a ticket that had subsequently come down in price and that I wasn't happy as the website says "the earlier you book, the cheaper the tickets will be!" with no caveat referring you to the T&Cs where it says, fares might go up with no refunds being made of the difference. They went away to speak to a manager and came back and said they would manually process an admin fee free refund of my non refundable ticket manually, on condition I bought a new ticket exactly the same as the previous one there and then for £48.50. So after filling in a form, I will get a refund back in the next week or two hopefully of the original advance fare of £70. So they wouldn't refund the difference but could refund the whole ticket.