Hello,
We have gotten the best Exchange rates available when using our charge cards abroad.But I will always get some foriegn monies ahead of time from either , WWW.Onada.com ,or WWW.Chase currency to go.com . Either one has great cheat sheets for conversions and can give you the exchange history for that countrys money.
Hope this helps Jim

Maybe I just like to take small risks, but I totally disagree that there is any need to arrive in a country like Germany, particularly at FRA, with marks. Perhaps if you were making a tight connection to a secondary airport, I could see this. Otherwise, major European airports have plenty of ATMs and there are usually ways to get into town without using cash (such as rail ticket machines that take credit cards).

If a transaction can be paid through a credit card, or through money obtained from a debit/ATM card, which is the cheaper way (ie lower fees) to pay for the goods or services?

Also be sure that your ATM card work on the Plus and Cirrus networks. I was aware ahead of time that my AMEX Membership Banking ATM card would not work overseas (is covered by multiple networks, but not the big two). I did a bit of searching and it appears that this is the case with many of the Online Banks. I was fine with TCs, but some might be caught by this.

In the future I think I will set up a basic checking account with Citibank (or BofA for certain countries). Both banks have ATMs and branches many countries.