Can One Benefit from an Action Point after a Charge?

Question

This question was prompted by a statement in this answer.

Charging Ends Your Turn

After a charge, your turn is over, except for free actions. From the Rules Compendium, pg 240:

No Further Actions: The creature can't take any further actions during this turn, except free actions.

and also

A creature's turn usually ends after it charges. However, it can extend its turn by taking certain free actions.

Action Points are Free

Using an action point to get another action is a free action. From the Rules Compendium, pg 67:

Action: Free action. A creature must have an action point in order to take this action.

and

Gain an Extra Action: The creature gains an extra action to use during its turn. The action can be a standard, a minor, or a move.

My Question

The action 'Spend an Action Point' is a free action, so clearly you can do this after a charge. However, the action you get from using that free action is explicitly not free. It is either a "standard, a minor, or a move".

Therefore, it seems to be pretty clearly laid out that although you can use an action point after the charge, you won't actually benefit from doing so because you can't use the action you gain.

It was suggested that the phrase "it can extend its turn by taking certain free actions" covers this, but I'm reading that as extending the turn because there are more actions occurring during the turn, all of which are free actions.

I suppose you could get other mechanical benefits from spending an Action Point, like the ones on paragon paths or from a Warlord's presence, but it doesn't appear that you could get the extra action.

Am I missing something? What? Where?

Answer 1

From PHB 288:

No Further Actions: After you resolve a charge attack, you can't take any further actions this turn, unless you spend an action point to take an extra action.

This was later amended to:

No Further Actions: The creature can’t take any further actions during this turn, except free actions. A creature’s turn usually ends after it charges. However, it can extend its turn by taking certain free actions.

In the RC (p240). This was an expanded ruling due to the number of free action powers that trigger on a charge.

Here is the rationale for the update(p26):

Page 287-288: Use the following revised rules for charge. This change clarifies that when you are moving as part of a charge, every square of movement must reduce the distance between you and the target, including the distance you count through blocking terrain. In addition, it clarifies that you can take free actions after a charge.

...

A creature’s turn usually ends after it charges. However, it can extend its turn by taking certain free actions, such as spending an action point (which grants the creature an extra action).

Basically, it was always intended that you could use an action point after a charge to take another action, this was the text in the original PHB. However, as the game expanded, many powers triggered as free actions after a charge (or needed to be used, such as the Barbarian's Swift Charge or Rampage), and thus they expanded this so that it was clear that any free action could be taken after a charge.

To add to this. If you can spend the action point to get another action (the free action in question), you get the action. This applies to dazed (See the PHB FAQ), and it applies to charging just the same.