Here in the UK, the best cards for withdrawing cash abroad are often not the best CCs for spending.

In which country is it possible to link a CC to a savings account? Do you mean just an ATM card? I'd rather be spending a bank's money and then paying them back than my own money getting stolen and then the bank trying to claw it back from the thief's bank.

Even if you never travel, it's still a good idea to have multiple bank accounts and cards, so if one gets stolen or a bank's computer systems go down, you aren't completely stuck (like some people here were, when various banks recently experienced glitches)

I personally usually bring cash on my travels anyway and have never had a problem... I'm more worried about not being able to get into my internet banking, since some banks now force me to use a card reader or special device to log on. It's all https so it should be safe from my end, but the banks get paranoid every time I use a foreign IP address.