In the case where Delta cancels the outbound of a round trip, won’t rebook you, but advises you to buy a ticket on another carrier (and you retain and fly the return), is it possible to get ORC? Or does this only happen if Delta actually agrees to rebook you.

So far, they won’t pay for the flights they told me to buy and ignored my request for ORC. But perhaps that’s not a reasonable request on my part if I had to buy my own replacement flight?

(yes it just means I lose and lose again; but I really just want to know if I should push the ORC?