The banks still advise customers to inform them when travelling, but I've not found that to be necessary when in countries with chip and PIN. (If I'm going outside Europe I will inform the bank of my main card, but in South America, Asia, Africa there will be some point where it isn't accepted, and I use a backup card -- that bank doesn't know I'm travelling.)
The USA used to be the problem -- about once a year, someone in the office would get a robot phone call from the bank saying their card had just been blocked due to suspect activity in the USA. That should be becoming a lot less common.
There is always a defcon pwn
The ide behind chip is that transaction result is written back to your card, something mag stripe cannot do. I had a family related fraud where my son used my card in store to buy few video games. Over the phone amex told me to go to the bank which was able to show me this card has been swiped physically in the store because confirmation hashes were written on the chip of my card.
I was explained up to 16777264 transaction hashes can be written on one chip before overwrite process starts.
So at this point you wont get your loeny back if you have your card present but claim someone made copy because they will simply pull data off the card.
Side issue Europe switched to touch credit cards some 3 years ago. Its insane fast yoy dont even touch reader you just wand your card transaction approved. You will need another 5-8 years to wait for that in usa tho.