If you hadn’t carried a balance, you would have “gained” $922. Instead, you gained $156. Having poor performance is not something to brag about.

As for “real” vs “nominal” interest, it’s irrelevant. Inflation does not produce new money in your bank account, so its existence doesn’t make you any better off regardless of what interest rate you pay.

The only question is what has the best rate of return for your situation. There’s never a guarantee that the best option will beat inflation, nor that the worst option won’t beat inflation. You don’t have control of that. If the best return is 2%, you take that. Could be a negative “real” return, could be positive. Doesn’t matter, because the fact that it has a negative “real” return doesn’t magically create another option with a better return.