In a way this time was a first as well, considering that they only recovered boosters for LEO missions so far. GTO is much less fuel to work with for landing and higher velocities.
Different use cases. This was a GTO launch which means the first stage had way more energy and therefore way tighter margins than the last attempt. This attempt used three engines to land and had a more difficult landing trajectory.
Doing it twice in such a small window of time is a logistical/programmatic leap.