Since you get 100 points for every ticket i was thinking about booking a bunch of $4 tickets to achieve select status. Then i could transfer the points into CO miles. Does anyone know if you have to ride the train to get the points or what the cheapest ticket is?

thanks,
Ian

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.)

So will a conductor accept a stack of tickets that i am not using?

You'd have to clarify your question for a real answer. If you gave him tickets for stops further down on his route, and you just got off early, then yes he'd probably take them. However, if you handed a conductor tickets for the Capitol Limited, while riding on the NEC, then no he should not take them.

Additionally, as I mentioned above, getting off early would work. Getting on in Wilminigton heading for Philly, for example and trying to hand him/her tickets from DC to Philly should not work. Again, if the conductor isn't on the ball, then you might get away with it, but I wouldn't bet on it.

He/she should also not be accepting tickets for a future or past date either, but again if they were really busy and not paying attention, whose to say what might happen. Of course when they turn in all those tickets, it's also possible that the computer would reject them for being the wrong date.