Credit Card activation

One of my credit cards expired last January. When I received the new one in the mail, as usual it has the sticker on there to call the toll-free number to activate the card. And usually when you call the 800 number, they make you talk to someone who is going to try to sell you extra things for your credit card account before it is activated. I have encountered some pushy people in that situation before, so was dreading the call.

I called, jumped through the hoops on the phone keypad that I needed to do, and then I heard the dreaded "please hold for the next available service representative before your card can be activated." So I hung up. I don't have time to talk to them.

It's been almost 2 months now, and I had not called back to activate my card. I even contemplated signing up for a brand new Visa card just to not have to call, since I get a ton of offers in the mail like everyone else, just not to have to call the number again. But I decided to call the 800 number again today to see what happened.

To my surprise, I entered what I needed to on the phone keypad for validation, the electronic voice said my card was activated, gave me a few more phone options if I wanted to change my PIN or what not, but that was it. It never even asked me to talk to anyone. And I wonder why? In other words, how can I make it so that I am not prompted to talk to a person when I just want to activate my card in the future? What was it that got me around this?

A) was it that I called on a Sunday instead of a weekday like I did before?

B) was it that I had called before and hung up? Maybe the card really had been activated the first time even though I hung up before talking to anyone.

C) was it that Ohio had really bad snow storms this weekend and the call center happens to be in Ohio and they told people not to come in to work this weekend?

D) a bug (I mean "feature") in the computer system?

E) other?