Must present perfect tense be used if the action takes place more than once?

Solution 1:

Whether or not an action is repeated has no bearing on the choice between the past tense and the present perfect construction. The first describes actions at a particular time in the past and the second relates past actions to the time of speaking. You wouldn’t say I have seen that movie twelve times on Tuesday because Tuesday is a particular time in the past. You would say instead I saw that movie twelve times on Tuesday. However, if you were obsessive about watching films, you could conceivably say I have seen that movie twelve times today because today is recent enough for it to be related to the time of speaking.

Solution 2:

The four different senses of the English Perfect construction, from

McCawley, James D. 1971. “Tense and Time Reference in English,” in C. J. Fillmore and D. T. Langendoen (eds), Studies in Linguistic Semantics. Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

1. Universal Perfect: Since 2000, Alexandra has lived in L.A.
   • Describes an ongoing continuous situation still true or relevant
2. Existential Perfect: Lola has seen “The Princess and the Warrior”.
   • Describes at least a single occurrence of some potentially important event.
3. Stative Perfect: Rebecca has lost her glasses.
   • Describes a current state that was caused by something in the past.
4. Hot News! Perfect: The Red Sox have won!
   • Describes an extremely recent important event.

All this stuff about "once in the past" is true some times, but not others.
The Perfect is not a simple construction.