Originally Posted by soitgoes

There are several recent threads with some information about maximizing points:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=442186
http://www.flyertalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=492293
http://www.flyertalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=484977

You do need to take the trips and you need to make sure that the conductor lifts your ticket.

You don't need to have select status, though, to transfer points to CO. And I guess I wonder how useful Select status will be if you don't ride Amtrak much. (Maybe I misunderstood your original post, but it seemed like you wanted to reach Select in order to transfer poitns to Continental.)